Starbucks' "tall" label in China is being torn off by its own hands step by step.
Recently, a police officer in Chongqing Reported that he and three colleagues ate a box lunch in the dining area outside a Starbucks store when they were on duty, and then a Starbucks clerk asked them to "eat in another place", and believed that these police officers would affect Starbucks's "brand image".
Afterwards, it was reported that the police involved were even complained about by Starbucks. It is understood that these four policemen have cleaned up the scene, but they have still been complained about, which makes the majority of netizens feel more indignant about this matter.
Subsequently, Starbucks responded that in the afternoon, other customers also wanted to take a seat in the dining area outside the store, so they communicated with the police to coordinate the seating, and due to inappropriate language, there was a communication misunderstanding, "There is no 'driving away the police' and 'complaining about the police'."
It is not difficult to find that Starbucks' statements about similar incidents are often the same structure: first of all, "the results of the investigation", followed by a brief apology, and finally, starbucks' dedication and recognition of its service and harvest over the years.
This kind of "syllogism" statement has been used for a long time, and naturally it will appear particularly perfunctory. Therefore, after the statement was issued, the netizens' doubts still did not diminish: since it was a good word to persuade the police to leave, why should it be said to "affect the image of the store"? In the cold winter weather, will there really be guests who want to eat in the area outside the store?
Perhaps starbucks's relatively high price in China has given them the illusion that they are very "high-end", so they have made this extremely arrogant move, which is also the core reason why netizens are generally angry about this matter. Even more ironically, Starbucks no longer has much capital to continue to be arrogant.
In December last year, two Starbucks stores in Wuxi falsified shelf life, used expired ingredients, and re-listed pastries that "did not stay overnight after opening". For this reason, the two stores were fined 670,000 yuan and 690,000 yuan respectively, and were shut down for rectification. Earlier, Starbucks stores in Shenzhen, Guangdong, Changde, Hunan and other places also had a record of being fined for selling expired food.
Starbucks' service attitude has also caused a large number of netizens to be dissatisfied, and the Internet can be seen everywhere about the "Starbucks service attitude" discussion, and always get a lot of response. Also in Chongqing, starbucks had been prosecuted for consumer disputes before the eviction of the police. Therefore, the video of "medium cup, big cup, and super cup" filmed by Luo Yonghao many years ago has gradually evolved into a footnote to Starbucks' arrogant and poor service attitude.
In the context of frequent negative events, Starbucks' performance in China is gradually not optimistic.
According to Starbucks' fiscal first quarter 2022 financial report (statistical date from October 4, 2021 to January 2, 2022), during the quarter, Starbucks' domestic same-store sales, average customer unit price and transaction volume all declined, reaching 14%, 9% and 6% respectively.
In the face of the continuous decline in these sales indicators, the solution given by Starbucks is to raise prices. Since October 2021, Starbucks has raised prices twice in China, the latest one occurred a few days after the eviction of the police, including American coffee, latte coffee and many other products have been sold at a price of 1-2 yuan compared with before.
Price increases would have a certain impact on sales, and in the case of frequent negative news, Starbucks' round of price increases is likely to be counterproductive.
At the same time, the competitive pressure facing Starbucks is also enormous.
According to Luckin Coffee's latest public financial report, in the third quarter of 2021, the company's total revenue reached 2.35 billion yuan, an increase of 105.6% over the same period of the year, and the net loss also fell sharply by 98.6%. In addition, Luckin's expansion rate still shows no signs of slowing down, as of the end of the third quarter, the number of Luckin stores has reached 5671, surpassing Starbucks's 5557. At the same time, luckin's average monthly trading customers also increased by 79.2% year-on-year.
You know, relying on a large number of new stores to achieve rapid expansion is Starbucks's strategy, but now it is seized by Luckin in the same way. The main reason for this is that the choices of the younger generation of consumers have changed.
In the hearts of young people, Starbucks' image of "high-end, petty bourgeoisie" is gradually disenchanting. In fact, the reason is not difficult to understand, take the low price of Luckin coffee quickly opened the market as an example, they and Starbucks are using the same variety of Arabica coffee beans, processing methods are also deep roasting, the so-called taste difference is probably more from the psychological effect.
If so, why spend more than 30 yuan to buy Starbucks, instead of Luckin, which is significantly better at the price? Is it because Starbucks has an import status? You know, in the United States, the birthplace of Starbucks, it often appears in the form of mobile stalls, and how much does this image have to do with the high-end?
Realistically speaking, luckin coffee's corporate image is not very good, and the impact of bad behaviors such as financial fraud has not been completely eliminated, but I personally appreciate the words of its CEO Qian Zhiya: "Foreign street drinks do not need to be bought as Chinese luxury goods." The rise of many domestic coffee brands also confirms the correctness of this sentence, after Starbucks announced the price increase, many domestic companies have said that there is no plan to continue to increase prices. In the face of competition from many emerging brands, can Starbucks continue to rely on the so-called "high-end" to sit firmly on the Diaoyutai?
Compared with several policemen who borrowed seats to eat box lunches, what really affected Starbucks's "brand image" was its own arrogance and rudeness and the quality that was increasingly unworthy of the price. If Starbucks continues this arrogance, then it is only a matter of time before it is eliminated by the Chinese market.