There are lots of old clichés about habits (thanks, Ben Franklin). One that comes to mind is “Old habits die hard.” Meaning that once something becomes a habit it’s really difficult to change.
Starbucks seems to be putting this saying to the test right now. They just announced a price increase for some of their beverages.
I’ve written about Starbucks before. Love their stuff and really want to see them succeed. But unless you’re adding value – now’s not the time to be increasing prices. Just sayin’…
This same exact scenario is happening with some of the professional organizations I belong to. They’re increasing membership dues but not adding any new member benefits. I’m fine with paying the additional amount but only if there’s an increase in value.
I completely understand organizations need to generate profits. But if you don’t take your value proposition into consideration, an incremental increase in pricing could ultimately lead to an overall decrease in customer loyalty and the respective revenue.
P.S. One habit we should all get into is reading the Carnival of HR. This event brings together the latest and greatest postings about human resources into a single location (for ease of reading.) Many thanks to Thoughts from Training Time blog for hosting the most recent Carnival and including HR Bartender in the mix.
Robert says
I’m not that big a coffee drinker anyway, and I’m not much of a starbucks fan when I do drink it. What boggles my mind is how much media covereage this price increase got on our local news. The DC NBC affiliate had it on for two days on various newscasts. Two days?? How does a 10 cent increase in a cup of coffee warrant that kind of press? McDonalds and other fast food chains tweak their prices all the time and it doesn’t make the news.
ReviewSNAP says
As if Starbucks wasn’t already expensive enough. I understand that they need to gain profits, but it seems a bit counterproductive upping the prices in a bit of a colder economic climate (even though it does seem to be warming up). Now that McDonalds has joined the market at a lower price Starbucks may be able to take an even larger chunk of the market share by offering more competitive prices raising their profits.
Wally Bock says
Starbuck’s problem isn’t pricing or even old habits. It’s that the company doesn’t know what it wants to be. So it keeps trying one thing after another hoping that something will work and solve all their problems. The odds are against it.
Training Time says
Thanks for your submission! It was fun putting the carnival together, but I would make one change – I need cotton candy, the real stuff, before I tackle it again.