Opening of Rebranded Outlets criticised, but are they so bad?
A lot of people, nowadays, are becoming fed up with the corporatism of Starbucks, and are more likely to go and buy their morning coffee from what appears to be a local coffee shop.
The Starbucks management agrees with these people, and that is why the U.S. behemoth has decided to try and kid people into new stores which are in fact Starbucks, by another name.
The Seattle Times reports that Starbucks is aiming to rebrand at least three stores in its home town.
The outlets will have locally oriented names such as 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea in a bid to have what Starbucks design director Tim Pfeiffer calls “a community personality”.
The stores will also attempt to differentiate themselves and maybe get a little more cool by selling alcoholic drinks as well as coffee, and featuring live music or poetry performances.
However, the move has already been dubbed “stealth Starbucks” in the States, and analysts say that Starbucks is not trialling these outlets for the good of their customers, but rather for profit, seeing that slumps in sales over the year could be down to potential customers preferring to go to their local independents where the coffee may even be cheaper.
Starbucks is also trialling selling some coffee for as little 60p a cup to enhance its appeal among those who have tightened their belts in the recession.
Seeing as there ia already a Starbucks outlets in Putney, could this idea be hitting our streets sometime in the future? And if it does, is this such a bad thing. Yes, it could possibly take some business from other local businesses, but last summer, a coffee poll run on this site, suggested that the top three coffee shops in Putney were chains; Costa Coffee, Carluccio's & Cafe Nero - Starbucks did not even make itto the runners up! So, the effect a 'stealth Starbucks' would mostly have, is to take business from other chains. On top of that, if it's music and poetry idea was to go ahead, then this would provide much needed opportunities for local artists and poets to present their work to a wider audience.
There is a question over the issue of not revealing their true identity, but this could also be addressed. Maybe we should wait and experience it for ourselves, before we make up our minds that this venture is an immoral one.
Jack Collins
August 5, 2009