Eight years after it began selling its espressos and frappucinos in Australia, the US giant has succumbed to powerful financial and cultural pressures and has closed 61 of its 85 shops across the country.
"It was maybe too standardised," says Michael Edwardson, a consumer psychologist in Melbourne.
"Early on it was unique and different, but as it became a global chain the standardisation made it lose some of that coolness and edginess. It was quickly copied and lost its lustre.
While the company is blaming underperforming stores, analysts say it expanded its operations in Australia too quickly and accumulated too much debt.
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- Koalabear
- added this
- added August 05, 2008
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Nice to see that, at least in Oz, the local shops seem to have been able to outwit the chain... more power to them!
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I hope that this trend continues... death to the chain stores, standard, boring coffee. And I also hope that independent coffee sellers are able to support coffee farmers in a fair and sustainable way. Check out this short cut of the documentary Black Gold, about a growing trend of coffee farmers giving up the trade.
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Starbucks is one of the best coffee companies for paying coffee farmers.
True thats its probably lost its lustre. People wanna help the locals now anyways.
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Starbucks also did not factor in that we have a different opinion of what good coffee is that the Americans. Australians are not interested in becoming or copying Americans... however, for some reason we did just recently take the sad crown of the fattest nation from you blokes... sadness.
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The independent cafe culture in the major urban centres of Australia is unique and outstanding. No surprise to me at all that consumers weren't receptive to Starbucks' global formula.
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- sybaritical
- 5 months ago
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Good, starbucks is going to dominate the world's small coffee shops. It should be regulated and stopped from gorwing too big.
