This article is the author’s feeling after learning the course “Wu Bofan – Weekly Business Review”. If you want to know more, please log in to get the App to purchase relevant business courses

Starbucks dates back to 1971, when it started selling coffee beans in Seattle. Coffee was already a huge industry, widely circulated as a fashionable beverage. However, Starbucks completely went against the historical trend. In the capitalist society driven by industrial civilization, the fast pace of life followed the concept of efficiency. At that time, instant coffee had become the mainstream, while coffee brewed by coffee beans was time-consuming, laborious and expensive. 13 years during the long period of time, starbucks are not recognised by the public, the overall size of stagnant. 1984 starbucks founder schultz essentially began to change enterprise management mode, set the starbucks on the fast lane, rapid new to 2000 years in the world has more than 2 m, at the same time, it was announced in 2000 to enter the Chinese city Twenty years later, Starbucks has more than 4,200 stores in China.

Is starbucks just about coffee

First, Rising coffee’s manifesto: Do you drink coffee, or a cafe? We just need you to pay for the coffee itself. It’s easy to see the smug feeling in the literal sense, as if it’s telling users that you don’t need to pay a premium to go to Starbucks, we’re offering the same quality coffee at a much lower price. But Rising is using one way of thinking to guess another, and starbucks is in the business of coffee shops. Coffee shop is not a simple place to drink coffee, but a third space. The third space is a place outside the home and workplace. In ancient times, the third space often pointed to the church. Nowadays, fewer and fewer people go to church in the age of technology, but the deep desire of human heart to bring self-satisfaction of the third space has not disappeared. Starbucks deep insight into this, so it has all the arrangement of the environment and the atmosphere of the foil is a deliberate design, user sees that the environment in the mind will naturally bred a kind of identity and belonging, it is just like an old friend, bored when want to see him, according to the statistics in starbucks early every month the number of users go to starbucks highest up to 18 times, star It is the special magic created by the environment that attracts users.

The environment of Starbucks starts from the visual point of view, lighting, counters and tables and chairs are placed deliberately, when people place themselves in it, they will feel simple but not simple, delicate and not luxurious, such a kind of gentle and introverted comfort slowly spread throughout the body. Secondly, most of the music played by Starbucks is performed by singers with internal contracts, and some songs cannot be heard outside. And the sound of grinding coffee wafted through, creating a sense of age. In addition, the fragrance and strong and delicious taste sent out by the development of coffee virtually anesthetize the user’s senses. Including the service provided by starbucks staff, their customer attitude and aura is all about charm.

Starbucks’ goals

The Starbucks logo has gone through several changes, but the sirens have stayed. The inspiration of the head picture originates from Siren in Greek mythology. She sings a euphemistic song on an island, and this song has a special magic that can make the sailors on the ship lose their minds after listening to it. The powerful attraction will lure the sailors to the island and finally be eaten by the Siren. A logo like this shows the goal of Starbucks by creating something special that people can’t resist walking into.

In China, tea is divided into two kinds, one is firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce and vinegar tea, and the other is piano, chess, painting, poetry, wine tea. They are both teas, but they show different values in different categories. The key lies in the fact that one has morality and the other has no morality. A gentleman does not drink tea without morality. In the same way, coffee can be divided into two kinds, one is simply a drink, and the other is given a special meaning, which is what Starbucks wants to do.

Starbucks’ core customers

In 1994, Starbucks faced the dilemma of doubling the price of coffee beans. Some have suggested buying cheaper beans altogether, since 90 percent of users can’t tell the difference. At that time, the president of Starbucks denied this decision. He believed that even though 90% of the users could not taste the taste of cheap coffee beans, 10% of the users could still taste the coffee beans, and these 10% are the core users of Starbucks. Once using cheap coffee beans, Starbucks would lose the trust of the core users forever. Why that 10% is so important starts with the name of Starbucks.

Starbucks got its name from moby Dick, and Starbuck was a man of calm charm who served as the ship’s first mate. One of his most distinctive features is drinking coffee on major occasions. When a crisis approaches, sit on the deck, think quietly, sip a cup of coffee, and then the idea comes. The adventurer ethos of Starbuck was akin to the entrepreneurial spirit of the modern business world, and Starbuck possessed the sort of personality sought after by the elite in Europe and America. Starbucks does not operate its coffee shops with the attitude of “comer” or “customer”. Instead, it serves Starbucks who really love coffee and know coffee. Although this group only accounts for about 10%, they are the real core user group of Starbucks, which can also be called coffee enthusiasts. These aficionados know exactly what top-grade beans taste like, when the coffee is ground properly and what kind of manufacturing process is required for top-grade coffee.

There was a controversy inside Starbucks over whether to allow smoking and eating hot food. Although lifting smoking would attract more users, the smell of the cafe would be damaged. The same is true of hot food. Adding a variety of hot food items to the counter can boost consumption, and smell plays a big role in creating the atmosphere of a cafe. Giving up smell would actually undermine the core spirit of Starbucks.

Starbucks is not about traffic thinking, it’s about power thinking. Traffic thinking is about the number of users. Superuser thinking is about getting a certain segment of the population to spend as much money as possible. Starbucks doesn’t expect crowds to flock to its cafes, but it hopes to attract coffee aficionados over the long term, such as those who visit 18 times a month. It can be seen from this that Starbucks has a screening mechanism for the user group, and those who really understand and love coffee at the beginning become the core user group of Starbucks, and they will have a deep sense of superiority in their heart. Starbucks is like the center of the circle. The enthusiasts form the first concentric circle. People who like drinking coffee will attract people who don’t drink coffee, and people who like drinking coffee will attract people who don’t know much about coffee. People who don’t know much about coffee can be divided into high-level, intermediate and low-level people, and high-level people will attract lower-level people. Thus the boundaries of concentric circles continue to expand, and new concentric circles are constantly added to the field. Starbucks as a whole is also growing dramatically.

What accounts for this outward reaching circle of attraction made up of enthusiasts? It really comes down to human nature. Everyone has a sense of smallness and inferiority deep in their heart. When they encounter setbacks and challenges, they will have the impulse to overcome this sense of smallness. If a higher collective, organization, or meaningful being connects with the small self, the self immediately feels a strong sense of joy and identity, and the sense of smallness melts away under the protection of the collective energy. Starbucks has developed an unbreakable trust with its aficionados, who love coffee, recognize starbucks’ service and quality, and are willing to go to coffee shops. As the second layer do not understand but a little like to drink coffee, they can see the group of enthusiasts to starbucks, this is not just a cup of coffee, those enthusiasts of aura, manners and social status are attracted, that they also eager to join a group, because coffee are endowed with new meaning. And when they do join, they gain a sense of superiority among those who don’t drink coffee or don’t understand coffee at all, and this attraction radiates down the next level.

Starbucks initially only a small part is responsible for running the core customer base, and the community to attract users to join and other spheres of appeal to continue to deliver, other spheres of starbucks around the center of concentric circles increasingly more and more, in the end they make starbucks become a coffee business empire.