Starbucks Front Porch

Starbucks: How It Became an Extension of People’s Front Porch Starbucks, originally started off as a tiny store in Seattle’s Pike Place Market that sold only coffee- and tea-related products in 1971, is now a dynamic company that has achieved omnipresence all over the world. As of March 30, 2014, Starbucks retains its position in being the world’s largest coffee company 1, with a total of 20,519 stores across the globe in 63 countries, from China to Costa Rica to Czech Republic – and counting. In April 2014, Forbes reported that Starbucks recorded a global comparable sales growth of 6% and a revenue of $3.9 billion in Q2 fiscal 2014. In virtually every Starbucks store, you can spot mid-aged women reading a novel, students writing their essays,

Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks told Forbes magazine in 2004 that he aimed to portray Starbucks as “an extension of people’s front porch” (Schultz). This review will explore the reason why people would spend hours in a place to do things, be it for leisure of for work, away from home and workplace and still feel connected.

In her study, Lawrence (1955) found that customers are not seeking to purchase only the products themselves, but pleasant purchase experiences. Nevertheless, such experiences are rarely found in large multinational corporations such as Mcdonald’s, KFC, Subway restaurant, and Starbucks. So what makes Starbucks stand out amongst them? In his book Pour Your Heart into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time, Schultz recalled his business trip to Milan in 1983, where he discovered the “coffeehouse culture”. In Italian coffee houses, baristas knew their customers by name, and had casual conversations with them while customers mingled standing on their feet as there were no chairs. This business trip then inspired Schultz to carry out the similar transformation to Starbucks – to make the coffee house a second home to customers. At Starbucks, the working

Music is also another aspect that Starbucks emphasizes, since one of the store managers Timothy Jones mixed tapes for his store, which later turned out to be so popular that the company licensed his compilations for sale. (Fortune, 2004). Now, Starbucks takes pride in discovering underground artists and music, and even sells music CDs on their official website. “We’re just as passionate about music as we are about coffee. That’s why we handpick all the tunes you hear in our stores” (www.starbucks.com). The quiet and soothing jazz music played in Starbucks stores remains a spiritual companion and support to women reading their books, and students cramming for midterms at the coffee tables. Starbucks seeks to provide an inviting atmosphere for these individuals to relax despite their demanding schedules. (Seaford; Culp; Brooks, 2012). In many of his speech and interviews, Schultz re-emphasized Starbucks’ endeavour to make the coffee place customers’ “third place” – home, then workplace, and then Starbucks. (Schultz, Fortune,