Coffee City
Melissa Allison tracks Seattle's — and the world's — caffeine addiction.
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Did Starbucks traffic fall because it lost cachet? Or was it just early to the recession?
Posted by Melissa Allison
Following a deluge of books about Starbucks, a new title that's not strictly about the coffee giant has emerged with a seemingly simple idea: "The most successful products offer either convenience, which includes attractive pricing, or 'fidelity,' which means high quality and cachet," Lisa Von Ahn of Reuters writes.
In "Trade-Off" (Broadway, $23), former USA Today writer Kevin Maney argues that, "In the late 1990s, Starbucks epitomized cool, and people were willing to endure long lines for its pricey coffee concoctions. But when it expanded aggressively, the Starbucks experience began to look rather mundane," Von Ahn writes.
Is that why Starbucks' traffic into U.S. stores started declining in 2007, when the economy was still expanding? Or did lattes just take a hit before everything else, making Starbucks a leading economic indicator as Seeking Alpha and Jonathan Last at the Philadelphia Inquirer have suggested? (And which Safeway CEO Steven Burd's comments yesterday reinforce?)
Nov 20, 09 - 1:34 PM
Starbucks seeks managers of social media, digital strategy
Nov 19, 09 - 1:12 PM
El Diablo Coffee on Queen Anne enters turkey latte art smackdown
Nov 19, 09 - 12:05 PM
Is Starbucks having another customer-friendly computer problem? Gold Card members find a loophole
Nov 18, 09 - 5:48 PM
Howard Schultz's base salary raised to $1.3 million for Starbucks' fiscal 2010
Nov 18, 09 - 5:00 PM
Street Bean Espresso, new nonprofit coffee shop in Belltown, hosts reception Wednesday evening


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