Starbucks has an inferiority complex
A very good point taken by author Tim Hartford:
If I walk across town, five blocks, I pass six Starbucks shops. Is this a sign
of Starbucks’s power? No. It’s a sign of Starbucks’s desperation.
Nor does it mean Starbucks cares about convenience. If Starbucks had coffee that everyone would die for, meaning they would go to great lengths and distances for a shortie. This would display the brand’s scarcity power. Starbucks coffee has the same coffee as the mom-and-pop place sans the "Starbucks experience". All the locations is a sign of weakness, Harford says. Starbucks doesn’t trust you to go out of your way to buy their coffee and it shows with locations. The only ones profiting are the property owners that Starbucks is paying to.
In Korea the sole Starbucks licensee is Shinsegae (cousin to the Samsung Corp.). A couple of years ago, they stopped with the frequent points card and that ended my motivation to go there for coffee. When they introduced free wifi to majority of their locations, I returned for the "Starbucks internet experience).
For me I will go to great lengths to find a Coffee Bean (they do have points card, yet no wifi) because their drinks are that much better. And best of all, my money isn’t going to Shinsegae/Starbucks.
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