Starbucks announces plans to cut 900 more jobs, close stores

[dutch777]

3. Starbucks actually had a policy in prime demographic locations to take all suitable properties to keep out competitors

Had a friend who was store construction lead for the West Coast about 15 years ago and Starbucks actually decided if they were going to lose sales at one location, they would rather lose it to another of their own stores than a competitor. Given even a small strip mall store cost over a $ 1 million to build out and equip, you gotta sell a lot of coffee and at a premium to cover your front end costs plus pay for triple net space leases on way more square footage than you need.

Locally they just built a new stand alone store and across the street a local chain called 7Brew opened up a small drive thru with easily half or less the investment of the Starbucks. Starbucks has almost no drive thru line and 7Brew has 6+ cars in line all day long even in the afternoon. They sell drinks for less and are totally eating Starbucks' lunch.