Starbucks' middle-class filter was broken by the uncle and aunt themselves
Author | Xiaoyang
Edit | Yan Fei
题图 | unsplash
In recent years, the curiosity index of Chinese people about Starbucks has fallen one after another.
In the past, Starbucks was a high-end business meeting room and a high-efficiency paradise for freelancers. Drinking a cup of coffee here leisurely, showing the achievements of the migrant workers who have been working hard for many years. Even if people are laid off by the company in middle age, they habitually bring computers to Starbucks to pass the long days.
Today, this international chain of cafes has been developed by the masses in a variety of use cases: from Go corners, gazebos with melon seeds to free hot water supply points, etc. On social media, it is common to see netizens arguing over whether they can choose food or sleep at Starbucks.
From the middle-aged artificial seat to the "People's Park", what happened to the Starbucks store? Why is it no longer high-end?
Starbucks stores,
It became the "People's Park"
Recently, some netizens went to Shanghai One Starbucks to play coffee, and they strayed into the "paradise of Go lovers". As far as the eye can see, almost every table inside and outside the café has a chess board, and the aisles are crowded with chess players.
The related video was released on station B less than a month ago and has been watched by more than 1 million netizens. After watching the video, many people went to check in offline at this "Go Starbucks".
A spontaneous Go event at a Starbucks store in Shanghai. (Photo/@俊哥无滤镜)
According to The Paper, this Starbucks is located near the Zhongtan Road subway station, and every Monday, Thursday and Saturday afternoon, there are Go activities organized by chess players. Children accompanied by their parents in front of the chessboard, college students on winter vacation, middle-aged people looking for jobs, and retired seniors.
Bow your head and take a sip of latte, consider the next move, and go from playing chess from day to night. Some people lamented that this scene was "a perfect combination of Eastern and Western cultures", and some netizens were worried about the store's turnover, thinking that "ordering coffee is an obligation, and having a time limit is conscious." Only by mastering the sense of boundaries can we live in harmony."
The organizers of the event reminded the players to be quiet when playing chess and to place as many orders as possible. According to the observation of the surging reporter, more than half of the more than 30 people at the scene ordered drinks, and more than 10 people did not consume them.
As the number of Starbucks stores increased, people across the country began to light up the skill trees of different scenes in their stores. Some of them are desirable like Go corners, while others are incomprehensible.
Recently, a Starbucks store in Wuhan appeared eyebrow tattoo stall. In front of the floor-to-ceiling glass, three folding chaise longues are lined up, and the embroiderer leans sideways to tattoo the eyebrows of the guests sitting on the chaise longues. Two meters away is the display of Starbucks gift mugs.
Netizens encountered an eyebrow tattoo stall in a starbucks in Wuhan. (Photo/@吃饱饱)
Netizens thought that this was a brand service similar to Haidilao's nail art for customers, but in fact, it was just an embroiderer borrowing Starbucks' territory to do business. In this regard, netizens called it "outrageous", believing that this operation does not meet health standards and belongs to unlicensed beauty. Some netizens pointed out that Starbucks store staff did not act, and thought that embroiderers should not be allowed to carry out beauty business in the store.
didn't think about it, this eyebrow tattoo post also "exploded" more strange operations that happened in Starbucks:
A large group of sales occupy the Starbucks table for a meeting, and other consumers on the side are forced to listen to an internal training on how to conquer customers while waiting for coffee; aunts chat loudly while eating melon seeds, and do not order, but dislike the clerk for not cleaning diligently; uncles go to the Starbucks bar to ask for cups, put their own tea leaves in it, and then ask the clerk to wash it with boiling water, and then click to eat with their own dim sum......
Starbucks can also be a card room. (Photo/@Ruby)
Writer Hu Cheng summed up the rules of Starbucks on his Weibo: "Most of the people who go to McDonald's and KFC to occupy seats will pick in the corner and try not to affect others. Most of the people who come to Starbucks to occupy seats will pick the best seats. Small stand-alone tables with sockets against the wall are often unscrupulously occupied by non-consumer people, while migrant workers who buy coffee have to sit at large tables and worry about electricity all the time.
The uncivilized behavior in the store broke the soap bubble of all immersive office. The Starbucks café, which is warm in winter and cool in summer, is turning from a middle-aged artificial seat into a "people's park". Whether you spend or not, it seems that you can do whatever you want on the territory of international capital.
Why don't Starbucks clerks bother with these situations?
The pressure of public opinion is huge,
The clerk didn't dare to say anything
In China, some cafes and restaurants will have reminders such as "consume and be seated" and "do not bring out food", but there are almost no similar signs in Starbucks stores. In 2018, there were media reports that Starbucks allowed customers who did not consume to sit in the store and use the restroom.
A netizen who used to work at Starbucks shared his bitter experience of dissuading uncivilized behavior from customers: "It takes a minute to stop it, uncles and aunts can scold for an hour, and 400 yuan will be deducted for backhanding, and the store manager has to call to explain in a low voice." ”
There are also clerks who complain that the most garbage they pick up in the store is the milk tea packaging of other stores. In the face of the unscrupulous behavior of the customers, the clerk did not dare to say more, the reason was "who dares to rush?
The clerk said that he did not dare to care. (Photo/Screenshot of social platform)
As the big brother of the international chain coffee industry, Starbucks has either been complained about or on the way to deal with complaints over the years.
In February 2022, some netizens posted that a police officer was driven away by the clerk when he was eating a boxed lunch at the door of a Starbucks store in Chongqing, and asked Starbucks: "The police are not worthy of eating at your door?" This incident quickly appeared on Weibo hot search. On the review website, the relevant stores were collectively given half-star negative reviews by netizens. People's Daily Online also commented on Weibo: "Starbucks, please take back your arrogance." ”
People's Daily Online commented on Starbucks' dismissal of the police. (Photo/Weibo screenshot)
In response, Starbucks China officially responded that when the store partner coordinated the location with the police, it caused a communication misunderstanding due to inappropriate language, and emphasized that there was no "driving away the police" and "complaining about the police" on the Internet. Despite this, the official WeChat comment areas of Starbucks China and Starbucks Chongqing are still full of questions from a large number of netizens.
At the beginning of last year, Starbucks stores were on the hot search again because of the rush of customers. At the beginning of March 2023, a woman in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province posted that she went to a Starbucks store to put on makeup before getting a marriage license, during which she was "abused and driven away by the manager on duty". After the online complaint, Starbucks dealt with the refund fee and gift certificate to the person who posted the post.
(Photo/Weibo)
At the beginning of this year, some netizens complained about Starbucks "driving customers" because netizens brought cats into Starbucks. Starbucks customer service responded that pets are allowed in Starbucks, but they need to go to designated "pet-friendly stores" and stipulate that pets can only be outdoors and cannot enter the store.
According to the information provided by netizens, although Starbucks does not explicitly prohibit pets from entering, most stores have "no pets" signs on the glass. Unlike the previous two times, there are more sympathetic voices for Starbucks in the comment section this time. One highly praised review said: "You have the freedom to bring pets into the store, and I have the freedom to refuse to eat with pets." ”
Starbucks' pet-friendly store in Shanghai's Xuhui District. (Photo/Visual China)
Again and again, social media is teaching Starbucks to manage stores. It's not that Starbucks clerks don't care, but that a single tube may trigger a whirlpool of public opinion, and it is only part-time employees who are paid by the hour who suffer.
Try to keep up with the Chinese rhythm
Compared with the flavor and innovation of drinks, Starbucks' store environment has always been the soul of the brand.
Many Starbucks fans love the white noise that comes with the café. "I don't like to be quiet, I want to be noisy, not too noisy, it's better to have people around, everyone is busy with their own business. Therefore, I often go to the Starbucks near my house, order a cup of coffee for more than 20 yuan, sit for as long as I want, have the Internet, drink and music, and talk about things, write articles and chat without delay. Writer Ma Boyong once described on Weibo in his early years the reason why he chose to spend at Starbucks, which is also a typical "third place" scene that Starbucks wants to create.
Starbucks founder Howard Schultz said, "The first place is the home, and the second space is the office." Sitting somewhere in between, Starbucks is a place where everyone feels relaxed, safe, and a place where you feel a sense of belonging. However, this "third space" is facing disintegration.
Due to the potential pressure of public opinion, Starbucks store staff are in a dilemma between managing and not care, resulting in uneven environmental quality in stores. The guests here were enjoying the aroma of coffee, but there was a smell of feet wafting next to them, and it turned out that other guests had taken off their shoes and put their feet on the chairs.
In fact, in the real business process, Starbucks' "third place" is not as beautiful as the founder said.
Seeing Starbucks' "atmosphere group" facing the computer, some people can't help but ask: "Is it only I think Starbucks' tables and chairs are uncomfortable?" According to the analysis of coffee industry operators, the small tables, stools on stilts, and loose sockets are all designed to prevent guests from sitting for a long time.
The height of the Starbucks portion of the table, below an adult's knee. (Photo/Xiaohongshu@。。。。。 ）
If you're feeling particularly loud music or a particularly cold air conditioner at Starbucks, it's not necessarily your delusion. It is likely that you are in the busy hours of the store and have received a silent "drop-off" signal from Starbucks.
Sitting for a whole day with a cup of coffee is the romantic imagination of literary and artistic youth, and it is by no means the business goal of the café owner. The boss opens the door to do business, and what he expects is always that customers are coming and goods are rotating. In technical terms, that is, the turnover rate should be high. Starbucks can't escape this kind of revenue pressure.
In addition to the challenges of store management, Starbucks has also been saddened by its own performance in recent years. At Starbucks' earnings conference on January 31, Starbucks global CEO Laxman Narasimhan lowered his annual revenue growth forecast from 10%-12% to 7%-10%.
In his view, one of the main factors affecting Starbucks' revenue is that Starbucks' competitors in China are launching a price war, which may lead to "being diverted from second to third in store size" on the consumer side.
According to the Q1 financial report for fiscal year 2024, Starbucks China's same-store transaction volume increased by 21%, but the average order value decreased by 9%. (Photo/Starbucks)
As of January 2024, Starbucks has exceeded 7,000 stores in Chinese mainland, and plans to achieve the goal of opening 9,000 stores nationwide by 2025. Starbucks China executives have said that 40% of Starbucks' new stores will open in third- to fifth-tier cities this year, including nearly 3,000 county markets.
According to Tiger Sniff, Starbucks' new stores in 2023 will mainly be based on takeaway and pickup. If a store omits even tables and chairs, then there is nowhere to put the so-called "third place".
In the Chinese market, Starbucks began to roll up the number of stores, and also rolled up product co-branding. Since the beginning of this year, Starbucks has co-branded with the classic animation "Havoc in Heaven" to launch a new product "Frozen Latte" specially designed for takeaway, with sales of peripheral golden hoop stick-shaped straws and Monkey King avatar dolls.
In the past, Starbucks was mostly with European and American IPs such as Disney, but this is the first time to cross borders with domestic IPs. It's a pity that this joint name did not achieve the expected sensation, and the entire joint name was complained by netizens that it was "nothing new".
From the spatial atmosphere, product form to marketing methods, Starbucks is facing new challenges in China. With more and more new stores, can Starbucks still find enough middle-class people to be the "atmosphere group"?
Proofreader: Yang Chao, Operation: Ono, Typesetting: Jiang Jiahong
[1] Starbucks is sent to the village, 300 million generations, 2024.02.01
[2] Tattooed eyebrows at Starbucks, netizens: outrageous, Coffee Workshop, 2024.01.10
[3] A Starbucks in downtown Shanghai has become a stronghold of "Go fans", The Paper, 2024.01.29
[4] How does Starbucks "kick out customers"?", China Coffee Network, 2024.01.29