Starbucks Going Global Fast
The Starbucks coffee shop on Sixth Avenue and Pine
Street in downtown Seattle sits serene and orderly, as unremarkable as any other in the chain bought 15 years ago by entrepreneur Howard Schultz. A little less than three years ago, however, the quiet store-front made front pages around the world. During the World Trade
Organization talks in November, 1999, protesters flooded
Seattle’s streets, and among their targets was Starbucks, a symbol, to them, of free-market capitalism run amok, another multinational out to blanket the earth. Amid the crowds of protesters and riot police were black-masked anarchists who trashed the store, leaving its windows smashed and its tasteful green-and-white decor smelling of tear gas instead of espresso. Says an angry Schultz: ‘It’s hurtful. I think people are ill-informed. It’s very difficult to protest against a can of Coke, a bottle of Pepsi, or a can of
Folgers. Starbucks is both this ubiquitous brand and a place where you can go and break a window. You can’t break a can of Coke.’
The store was quickly repaired, and the protesters have scattered to other cities. Yet cup by cup, Starbucks really is caffeinating the world, its green-and-white emblem beckoning to consumers on three continents. In 1999, Starbucks
Corp. had 281 stores abroad. Today, it has about 1200 – and it’s still in the early stages of a plan to colonise the globe. If the protesters were wrong in their tactics, they weren’t wrong about Starbucks’ ambitions. They were just early.
The story of how Schultz & Co. transformed a pedestrian commodity into an upscale consumer accessory has a fairy-tale quality. Starbucks has grown from 17 coffee shops in Seattle 15 years ago to 5689 outlets in 28 countries.
Sales have climbed an average of 20 per cent annually since the company went public 10 years ago, to $2.6 billion in 2001, while profits bounded ahead an average of
30 per cent per year, hitting $181.2 million last year. And
the
Street in downtown Seattle sits serene and orderly, as unremarkable as any other in the chain bought 15 years ago by entrepreneur Howard Schultz. A little less than three years ago, however, the quiet store-front made front pages around the world. During the World Trade
Organization talks in November, 1999, protesters flooded
Seattle’s streets, and among their targets was Starbucks, a symbol, to them, of free-market capitalism run amok, another multinational out to blanket the earth. Amid the crowds of protesters and riot police were black-masked anarchists who trashed the store, leaving its windows smashed and its tasteful green-and-white decor smelling of tear gas instead of espresso. Says an angry Schultz: ‘It’s hurtful. I think people are ill-informed. It’s very difficult to protest against a can of Coke, a bottle of Pepsi, or a can of
Folgers. Starbucks is both this ubiquitous brand and a place where you can go and break a window. You can’t break a can of Coke.’
The store was quickly repaired, and the protesters have scattered to other cities. Yet cup by cup, Starbucks really is caffeinating the world, its green-and-white emblem beckoning to consumers on three continents. In 1999, Starbucks
Corp. had 281 stores abroad. Today, it has about 1200 – and it’s still in the early stages of a plan to colonise the globe. If the protesters were wrong in their tactics, they weren’t wrong about Starbucks’ ambitions. They were just early.
The story of how Schultz & Co. transformed a pedestrian commodity into an upscale consumer accessory has a fairy-tale quality. Starbucks has grown from 17 coffee shops in Seattle 15 years ago to 5689 outlets in 28 countries.
Sales have climbed an average of 20 per cent annually since the company went public 10 years ago, to $2.6 billion in 2001, while profits bounded ahead an average of
30 per cent per year, hitting $181.2 million last year. And
the