Just finished reading the starbucks article in business week. Ternyata, di buka nya 3 starbucks di jakarta itu termasuk one of starbucks’ ambition to colonize the globe. Mereka emang lagi gencar gencarnya expanding overseas and this is just a start, still in the very early stage of their plan, so wait till you see starbucks everywhere wherever you go..hehe! Starbucks is one of the fastest growing businesses in the world, 15 years ago, they only have 17 coffee shops in Seattle but now it’s growing to 5,689 outlets in 28 countries. Thinking of buying stocks? Consider starbucks, cause its stocks have gone thru 4 splits and when most companies are in downsizing era, starbucks is expanding!!


Padahal, starbucks itu sering banget di protest orang orang dimana mana lho, every time you see a new starbucks built, there is most likely a crowd of protesters in front of it, but they still going strong. Trus juga, ternyata management starbucks sucks big time, most of its employee are not satisfied with its policy, a lot of complaints about them being overworked and under appreciated. Malah ratusan store manager nya starbucks pernah nge-sue starbucks karena mereka nggak di bayar to work overtime.


But everybody’s still going to starbucks anyway and it’s still the most growing brand even though they are not relying on marketing and advertising. In fact, when most retail like Mc-Donald’s spend more than $300 million annualy towards advertising, starbucks only spend $30 million. Well setelah di pikir ya emang they don’t need a lot of advertising cause they don’t really have competitors and most of the time we are left with no choice but to get a cup of coffee at starbucks cause they are the closest thing we can reach.


That’s one thing about starbucks, they are really a winner when it comes to location, and they would do anything to get the location they want. Mereka bakalan datengin landlordnya and tell the landlord that they are gonna pay double rate as long as the owner is willing to kick the current tenant. Dan misalnya nih ada one local coffee shop, dan sebenernya starbucks is not planning to open another coffee shop in that same area, they will still go to the landlord and offers them double rate only to keep the competitors out of the location, padahal setelah local coffee shop itu keluar, tokonya pun di kosongin gitu aja.


Sekarang, ada yang namanya prepaid starbucks card..priced all the way to $500. So the customer can just give the cashier their card and the cashier will swipe it and it will deduct the total automatically and then the customer is ready to go, no hassle, no need to rummage thru your purse for coins, no need to sign for the receipt and they have sold around $70 million of the cards. It’s scary….Starbucks is caffeinating the world.