November 30, 2006
Target Market: China’s Little Emperors
Eyeing a Billion Tea Drinkers, Starbucks Pours It On in China, by Janet Adamy (let me know if this link doesn’t work for non-subscribers)
On a warm summer evening at a Starbucks in downtown Shanghai, customers lined up at the counter to order mango Frappuccinos, fruit and vegetable cups and blueberry cheesecake. Warren Guo, a 30-year-old who works in foreign trade, sat on the patio and shared a piece of cheesecake with his friend David Wang, 35, who also works in foreign trade. Mr. Guo says he doesn’t like coffee but comes to Starbucks because there are “many girls.”
There’s an SBUX in my office building and I visit it occasionally (there’s also a Pacific Coffee, which is much nicer). It’s true, no one except foreigners orders coffee, and the place is filled with attractive young women keen on meeting guys who are foolish enough to fork over $3 for a 30 cent cup of the devil’s brew.
November 30th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
Hold up! What are you doing in an office building? Did you go and get a “real” job?
November 30th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
hehe, yes, we are all curious
November 30th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Michael: No, I just volunteer a few hours a week helping some local accountants improve their writing. It’s purely a coincidence that they all happen to be beautiful women in their early twenties.
November 30th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
Hey Maoxian,
Do you need any assistant? I’ll even treat them for a cup of SBUX, if they’re up to… ;O
November 30th, 2006 at 11:02 pm
Are those foreigners ordering coffee from SBUX primarily American? :) I find their coffee to be terrible. When I worked in HK my American colleagues and visitors used to take photos of themselves in front of the SBUX in my office building and send the pics back home to their friends/family. A practice I found quite wierd :)
December 1st, 2006 at 9:46 am
Eyal: Yeah, that’s weird picture taking… maybe a sort of neo-colonial thing. ;-) I don’t drink coffee and can’t tell good from bad, but yes, mainly Americans at my local shop. I just go there for the girls, obviously.
December 2nd, 2006 at 4:35 pm
heh
I’m one of those people who would waste $4 for a latte over $0.30 for a cup of regular joe. One of my stupid vices. I prefer going to Coffee Bean, Peet’s Coffee, random indie coffee shops over SBUX, admittedly mostly for the snob factor instead of taste. Of course, there’re the girls.
When I was visiting Macau a month ago, SBUX was the only thing there resembling the coffee shops I was used to hanging out at in LA. So, I dropped by there every other day (to my shame), and yes, all the customers were tourists and foreigners, mostly Americans. Alas, cute girls were missing from their customer base. I don’t think the locals appreciated the value of a $4 latte.
December 3rd, 2006 at 8:26 pm
Paying $3 for a coffee should be made a crime.