Starbucks? Well, it’s cheaper than therapy

By JACEY ECKHART , The Virginian-Pilot
© November 28, 2003

Did you know the Starbucks Corp. is posting annual net sales of 4.1 billion dollars a year? That’s a lot of coffee by the cup. No wonder financial advisers all over the country are getting upset at what they perceive is our $3-a-day, $15-a-week, $800-a-year coffee habit. My stars, woman, you could start an IRA with that! Which would be nice.

But it’s not about the coffee. I imagine that Starbucks does serve very good coffee. I wouldn’t know. I can’t tell the difference between my father’s hand-picked, imported, specialty bean, ground-moments-before-he-brews coffee and the stuff that’s sitting around the 7-Eleven. What’s to know? It’s coffee. It’s black. It smells nice. It’s good with cream and sugar. WD-40 is good with cream and sugar. Don’t tell my barista. So what is dragging people into Starbucks to spend billions? You could say that it was the classic marketing ploy. You catch the consumer’s interest. You make them feel they have a need. You provide the product that fills that need. You make the consumer think he needs that need filled right now. Over and over. Or you could say that Starbucks (and other coffee houses) are filling a need that we really do have — aside from the coffee. Here are the ones I see:

Starbucks as Therapy: We don’t go to Starbucks just for the coffee. We go for the way it makes us feel. It’s a clean, well-lighted place and smells like Mom’s house. Sounds like a musically hip boyfriend’s apartment.

More...