Much Ado About Everything

I posted this on a blog I often visit – incidentally I often spend more time writing posts for other people’s blogs than my own, and they’re of better quality too.

It was said that Starbucks business model involves people coming to sit on comfy sofas, using wireless internet and getting thirsty, thus buying some overpriced coffee.  To which I replied…

Sitting on comfy couches and enjoying wireless internet at Starbucks? What utopia are you living in? The only Starbucks I know of where you could ever find a FREE comfy sofa was when I was in Luzerne and Zurich, Switzerland, two years ago. And my double espresso (I don’t drink fancy drinks, though I did learn to enjoy the coloured water that north americans call “coffee”) was over $4. Here, Starbucks is ALWAYS crowded, even early in the morning or evening. Well, I DO live on west coast and close to Seattle…

Which actually makes me wish there were OTHER places to get my coffee. Like, REAL coffee houses where you can actually SIT down and drink it, rather than take it to go. Back home in Europe you’d never buy a coffee in a coffee shop and then take it with you – what you’re paying for is not really the coffee but the right to sit down, chat, socialize, look at the human traffic passing by etc. None of which happens in Starbucks, unless you are one of the lucky ones who got a seat (who ARE those people by the way??). So for me – and most people I know – it’s just a place to get your coffee, nothing more. To get it, that is, after waiting in line for 10 minutes to get a drink that takes a push of a button (they got rid of manual machines a few years back and naturally quality of drinks suffered but nobody seems to care) and a 20-second wait, because the same line serves people who want their double-tall extra-hot skim milk caramel latte or worse yet a frappucinno (though in summer so do I sometimes).

Incidentally, I go to Starbucks for the same reason I go to McDonalds (which I do only twice a month or so, unlike Starbucks) – their product is CONSISTENT. It isn’t the best, but it *always* tastes the same, for better or worse. There is better coffee to be found (duh, this is Vancouver) but thanks to Starbucks, it’s not in convenient places.

What does this has to do with Tokyopop and manga? I guess not much, except that I don’t think Starbucks model as you outlined actually works. What they make money on is the volume of people moving through their stores. I do think they’re going to hit the limit pretty soon (today I read that they posted slowest same-store sale increases since 2001) because the lineups are getting unmanageable – even with 4 starbuckses just in the mall near my place. They’ve become too big for their own good and forgot the ways of their fathers (10 years ago flyers in their stores were about the quality approach they were taking; now it’s just tie-in business like starbucks visa etc.). I used to get a free drink coupon every now and then when they’d screw up or take too long; I haven’t gotten one in ages.