Starbucks has announced a partnership with Uber Eats for the delivery of food and beverages from around 3,500 stores in the United States.
The company also revealed that they are looking to expand in China and hope to double their outlets in the country but it has been projected that same-store sales will remain steady, something which is expected to push shares down 3 percent.
However, Starbucks reckons global same-store sales will grow between 3 and 4 percent per year in the long term, almost in accordance with a forecast that predicts a growth in sales will be at the lower end of 3 to 5 percent this year.
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The franchise has experienced struggles when it comes to attracting diners to Starbucks restaurants and is facing major competitions from smaller coffee chains that provide more exotic coffees and fresh food.
As a method to combat the competition, they have revamped owned and licensed businesses, improved delivery, shut down Teavana outlets and laid off workers. The company has also added new food and drinks to their menus.
Their latest initiative stems from a pilot program launched in Miami back in September and delivery will kick off in early 2019.
“Leveraging learnings from its delivery experience in China, Starbucks sees further market opportunity with Starbucks Delivers,” they announced in a press release this week.
“The company recently initiated pilots of Starbucks Delivers in both Tokyo and Miami with Uber Eats. Today, Starbucks announced plans to expand Starbucks Delivers to nearly a quarter of its U.S. company-operated stores in early 2019.”
The coffee house also announced that their partnership with the Alibaba Group in China has seen them launch a virtual store in the Asian country.
“As part of this partnership, Starbucks is launching its first-ever, virtual Starbucks store today in China,” the statement reads. “The virtual Starbucks store provides customers a one-touch digital Starbucks Experience, utilizing the Starbucks® app and Alibaba’s customer-facing mobile apps, including Taobao, Tmall and Alipay.”
Think Starbucks could be on to something here? They probably are. Who wouldn’t like coffee delivered to them? Well except for people who don’t like coffee… or Starbucks.
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