As I read through my fellow classmates’ blogs and saw many interesting posts, one of them that caught my attention is about Starbucks is now offering baked goods and breakfast rather than just selling beverages. (See Cecilia’s blog post at https://blogs.ubc.ca/ceciliachun/). Since we just learned about customer behavior last week, one thing that came into my mind while reading her blog is about how Starbucks has been able to introduce a breakfast line that match the tastes and preferences of their customers in each country. This is because in each culture/country, people have different customer behavior and influences towards the products. Cecilia had discussed about the 4Ps (Produce, Promotion, Placement, and Price) of Starbuck’s decision of the new breakfast line and I agree with her that Starbucks has a terrific marketing strategy, as it is able to brand itself to be one of the valuable, high-end coffeehouse worldwide. Thus, no problem introducing the new breakfast line to the shop.
Some people might think that it is cool just to hold and drink from the cups that have Starbucks’ logos on them, or just to buy baked goods/snacks from Starbucks even if they don’t worth the money spend. This is because Starbucks have built a ‘cool’ image to represent itself. One thing that Starbucks had gained for its competitive advantage is that they provide convenience to customers. We can find Starbucks nearly everywhere we go across the country from the top of the mountain like whistler to downtown like the twos across each other on Robson Street.
With over 17000 store across over 55 countries, It is amazing how Starbucks can maintains its value and offers baked goods that match the preferences of customers in each country – Social influences. For example, people in Canada and in Thailand would probably have different preferred tastes of baked goods. In my opinion, Thai people like to eat sweeter bakery such as sweet blueberry tart, sweet lemon bar and according to my experience, I noticed that some of the baked goods that offer in Vancouver are not offer in Thailand. Starbucks has been able to market itself to be accepted in each culture, while maintaining the ‘cool’ global image and standards. This is because they know what influence customer behaviors and they know what is right to offer for their customers in each country. Thus, making Starbucks one of the largest high-end coffeehouse.
