4 ms·

Somewhat related, but I always wonder if things like this are symptomatic of something larger happening - i.e. I wonder if we're at the start of a recession of

Somewhat related, but I always wonder if things like this are symptomatic of something larger happening - i.e. I wonder if we're at the start of a recession of some kind, and this is a symptom of that. Of course the more logical part of my brain says "Starbucks is over-saturated, local coffee shops have surpassed Starbucks in many ways, and people are starting to realize how horrible frappuccinos are for them." Still, sometimes it's hard to shake this nagging feeling that things like this are dead canaries. I'm not quite sure why, though.

parthdesai 8y ago
anecdotal, but i stopped having them after they were required to put calories on the menu. That and i got common sense and started making my own coffee rather than spending ~$5 per coffee everyday.
- nyolfen 8y ago
  if you don't have any particular attachment to the romance of drinking coffee, a month of caffeine tablets will run you about $5 (or less)
  - tudelo 8y ago
    Coffee tastes good :)
  - parthdesai 8y ago
    i do like the taste of coffee
  - stephengillie 8y ago
    If you do have a particular attachment to the taste of coffee, consider a Keurig ($120-$250) with a reusable filter. Each cup of coffee uses ~1/3 oz of ground coffee, so a 12oz bag ($6-21) gives ~33 cups. With expensive coffee, and an expensive machine, at 10 cups per day, after 100 days (1000 cups), that's $886.36, or $8.86 per day. If you find a cheap machine and good, inexpensive coffee, you're looking at $301.82 or $3.02 per day. Add in $13/300 paper filters for easy and compostable cleaning, and you're looking at $3.45 - $9.29 per day, depending on your coffee price. And 32oz of vinegar for the descaling ($4) for another 1000 cups, increases to $3.47 - $9.30 per day. As a bonus, if you're also a Futurama fan, you will experience time at an unusual rate once every 10 days.
    - tlavoie 8y ago
      How about a nice French press (thermos-style, stays hot for a bit), a grinder and some beans? I make a batch at a time (roughly 1 litre), call it a couple full coffee cups, without having to wank about with a bunch of tiny per-cup efforts that add up to being a pain in the ass overall. Coffee grounds can go in my compost, or feed the next batch of oyster mushroom spawn. Mmmmm.
      - stephengillie 8y ago
        How long does a 12oz bag of coffee last you?
- lifeisgood99 8y ago
  You can use the ap to order in advanced if that's available in your region
tracer4201 8y ago
28 year old here. I was buying starbucks 5 days a week and started drinking the office coffee back in january. I haven't spent a dime on starbucks ever since. I realized at some point I want to buy a home and also retire. Tightened the belt a bit, wrote out a strict budget, and now i am adhering to it. Also, the crazy stock market prices are making me fearful. I still have my 401k and sp500 fund contribution each month, but I sold individual stock I was holding (mostly just faang's)... some of it is now in a cash savings account, in cd's, and a bit in just some vanguard mutual funds. Typing on phone, sorry for typos.
- tudelo 8y ago
  To be fair, 3 dollars on coffee 3 to 5 days a week is probably not eating in to your budget very much. But I guess we all focus on different things.
  - berbec 8y ago
    Starbucks is the giant profit machine it is because of the high percentage of customers who don't order a $3 coffee. Their lifeblood is the venti soy, extra whipped cream, Chai flavor shot, double expresso Frappuccino. The article specifically calls out the drop in this high-ticket-price items decline as worrisome.
  - dingaling 8y ago
    $450 per year is a new phone, or a return flight to somewhere for a weekend break. Or a coffee machine. And that's just the lower end of potential outlay. When i was at school in the 80s one of the mandatory classes we loathed was Home Economics. However many of its lessons have been fundamental to my life since. One example being to consider the cumulative cost of small daily expenditures.
    - tudelo 8y ago
      450 dollars. Is 450 dollars a lot of money to you? Yes, those are all other ways to spend 450 dollars. In my opinion, getting a coffee is a quality of life boost. It takes no effort, and it increases my productivity and happiness. We are talking about 450 dollars in a year. I spend much more money on my dog and she is much less of a guarantee of return on happiness... But, I do agree. Some people may not be able to afford 450 dollars of discretionary spending in a year. But they likely would just spend it on something else, and the yearly cost of coffee is definitely not near the cost of alcohol for anyone who drinks. It's really not something to worry about.
nerdponx 8y ago
Of course the more logical part of my brain says "Foobar Flappers Inc is over-saturated, local flapper shops have surpassed FooBar in many ways, and people are starting to realize how horrible FooBar flappers are for them." This applies to a lot of things. It's a broad trend, and I hope it sinks in rather than passes as a fad.
tayo42 8y ago
> Starbucks is over-saturated, local coffee shops have surpassed Starbucks in many ways, and people are starting to realize how horrible frappuccinos are for them." isn't this true for other industries like beer and fast food though?
- berbec 8y ago
  Mostly, yes. But market saturation isn't a hard cap on sales. I owned a few fast food restaurants. To gain sales you either added new customers (the market saturation cap), increase order frequency or increase order size. Obvious, but the counter-intuitive part is adding customers is orders of magnitude more expensive. That's why loyalty programs, rewards, "Stars" are so prevelant; as are all the little snacks you walk by on your way to order your $1.99 black coffee - Starbucks needs you to pick up that organic, gluten-free rice krispies treat. The eating out/burger/coffee spending pie is only so big in number of customers, so to increase your revenue you try to steal customers from other businesses and reduce the time between visits and increase the amount spent per visit. "Only at Starbucks - Nitro cold brew", "117 stars to your next free beverage" and conveniently placed chocolate covered expresso beans are specifically targeted to these issues.
temp-dude-87844 8y ago
I believe in such signals. Starbucks, to everyone, is discretionary spending: pricey, single-use consumables. In the US, the stores are someplace you can sit and spend time, like a Panera, but plenty of people get their drinks to go. It'd be worth comparing drive-thru and take-out traffic with eat-in traffic at Starbucks to see if a particular category of orders is declining more. Discretionary spending on consumables is the first thing that most people cut back when they're trying to save money. People have a fixed amount of income, and they try to allocate that to necessities first. A reduction of spending in discretionary consumables may be an indicator that people perceive their cost of living to be rising.
matte_black 8y ago
Not a recession, not in this economy. It’s too strong right now, give it another 2 years maybe.

parthdesai 8y ago

anecdotal, but i stopped having them after they were required to put calories on the menu. That and i got common sense and started making my own coffee rather than spending ~$5 per coffee everyday.

nyolfen 8y ago
if you don't have any particular attachment to the romance of drinking coffee, a month of caffeine tablets will run you about $5 (or less)
- tudelo 8y ago
  Coffee tastes good :)
- parthdesai 8y ago
  i do like the taste of coffee
- stephengillie 8y ago
  If you do have a particular attachment to the taste of coffee, consider a Keurig ($120-$250) with a reusable filter. Each cup of coffee uses ~1/3 oz of ground coffee, so a 12oz bag ($6-21) gives ~33 cups. With expensive coffee, and an expensive machine, at 10 cups per day, after 100 days (1000 cups), that's $886.36, or $8.86 per day. If you find a cheap machine and good, inexpensive coffee, you're looking at $301.82 or $3.02 per day. Add in $13/300 paper filters for easy and compostable cleaning, and you're looking at $3.45 - $9.29 per day, depending on your coffee price. And 32oz of vinegar for the descaling ($4) for another 1000 cups, increases to $3.47 - $9.30 per day. As a bonus, if you're also a Futurama fan, you will experience time at an unusual rate once every 10 days.
  - tlavoie 8y ago
    How about a nice French press (thermos-style, stays hot for a bit), a grinder and some beans? I make a batch at a time (roughly 1 litre), call it a couple full coffee cups, without having to wank about with a bunch of tiny per-cup efforts that add up to being a pain in the ass overall. Coffee grounds can go in my compost, or feed the next batch of oyster mushroom spawn. Mmmmm.
    - stephengillie 8y ago
      How long does a 12oz bag of coffee last you?
lifeisgood99 8y ago
You can use the ap to order in advanced if that's available in your region

tracer4201 8y ago

28 year old here. I was buying starbucks 5 days a week and started drinking the office coffee back in january. I haven't spent a dime on starbucks ever since. I realized at some point I want to buy a home and also retire. Tightened the belt a bit, wrote out a strict budget, and now i am adhering to it. Also, the crazy stock market prices are making me fearful. I still have my 401k and sp500 fund contribution each month, but I sold individual stock I was holding (mostly just faang's)... some of it is now in a cash savings account, in cd's, and a bit in just some vanguard mutual funds. Typing on phone, sorry for typos.

tudelo 8y ago
To be fair, 3 dollars on coffee 3 to 5 days a week is probably not eating in to your budget very much. But I guess we all focus on different things.
- berbec 8y ago
  Starbucks is the giant profit machine it is because of the high percentage of customers who don't order a $3 coffee. Their lifeblood is the venti soy, extra whipped cream, Chai flavor shot, double expresso Frappuccino. The article specifically calls out the drop in this high-ticket-price items decline as worrisome.
- dingaling 8y ago
  $450 per year is a new phone, or a return flight to somewhere for a weekend break. Or a coffee machine. And that's just the lower end of potential outlay. When i was at school in the 80s one of the mandatory classes we loathed was Home Economics. However many of its lessons have been fundamental to my life since. One example being to consider the cumulative cost of small daily expenditures.
  - tudelo 8y ago
    450 dollars. Is 450 dollars a lot of money to you? Yes, those are all other ways to spend 450 dollars. In my opinion, getting a coffee is a quality of life boost. It takes no effort, and it increases my productivity and happiness. We are talking about 450 dollars in a year. I spend much more money on my dog and she is much less of a guarantee of return on happiness... But, I do agree. Some people may not be able to afford 450 dollars of discretionary spending in a year. But they likely would just spend it on something else, and the yearly cost of coffee is definitely not near the cost of alcohol for anyone who drinks. It's really not something to worry about.

nerdponx 8y ago

Of course the more logical part of my brain says "Foobar Flappers Inc is over-saturated, local flapper shops have surpassed FooBar in many ways, and people are starting to realize how horrible FooBar flappers are for them." This applies to a lot of things. It's a broad trend, and I hope it sinks in rather than passes as a fad.

tayo42 8y ago

> Starbucks is over-saturated, local coffee shops have surpassed Starbucks in many ways, and people are starting to realize how horrible frappuccinos are for them." isn't this true for other industries like beer and fast food though?

berbec 8y ago
Mostly, yes. But market saturation isn't a hard cap on sales. I owned a few fast food restaurants. To gain sales you either added new customers (the market saturation cap), increase order frequency or increase order size. Obvious, but the counter-intuitive part is adding customers is orders of magnitude more expensive. That's why loyalty programs, rewards, "Stars" are so prevelant; as are all the little snacks you walk by on your way to order your $1.99 black coffee - Starbucks needs you to pick up that organic, gluten-free rice krispies treat. The eating out/burger/coffee spending pie is only so big in number of customers, so to increase your revenue you try to steal customers from other businesses and reduce the time between visits and increase the amount spent per visit. "Only at Starbucks - Nitro cold brew", "117 stars to your next free beverage" and conveniently placed chocolate covered expresso beans are specifically targeted to these issues.

temp-dude-87844 8y ago

I believe in such signals. Starbucks, to everyone, is discretionary spending: pricey, single-use consumables. In the US, the stores are someplace you can sit and spend time, like a Panera, but plenty of people get their drinks to go. It'd be worth comparing drive-thru and take-out traffic with eat-in traffic at Starbucks to see if a particular category of orders is declining more. Discretionary spending on consumables is the first thing that most people cut back when they're trying to save money. People have a fixed amount of income, and they try to allocate that to necessities first. A reduction of spending in discretionary consumables may be an indicator that people perceive their cost of living to be rising.

matte_black 8y ago

Not a recession, not in this economy. It’s too strong right now, give it another 2 years maybe.