Starbucks Wants Customers to Please Come Again

Starting today and running through Labor Day, Starbucks will be helping customers succumbing to afternoon drowsiness with a special discount. After 2 p.m., anyone who produces a receipt from a previous Starbucks purchase that morning can buy any iced grande beverage for $2. (Drinks like their grande iced latte typically costs about $4.) The new discount is part of an aggressive attempt by the faltering coffee giant – which is closing hundreds of locations and recently posted a loss for the first time – to retain customers. But a commenter on Starbucks Gossip seems to reflect a growing consensus: “I don't know, this just all seems a little desperate to me.”

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By John Del Signore in Food on August 5, 2008 11:14 AM

Comments [rss]

heycarrieann

i totally agree with interlard, drop the grossly inflated prices, please speed up the process, and kick out the dead beats who take up residency with a cup of water and the free ny times...and moms, fold up the strollers.

swag

That's not desperate. At least not yet.

Desperate is Howard Schultz changing his name to "Crazy" Howard Schultz, and his persona beckoning to us, "Are we crazy to give these kinds of deals away? Just wait for our Christmas in August sale. Our prices are IN-SAA-AA-AA-NE!"

And then proceeding to get get 8 years of jail time for fraud.

In other words: give it a few months.

NannyState

Legalize Marijuana in New York and let Starbucks sell hash at all their New Amsterdam locations.

whitecastlerock

Starbucks coffee is just awful and expensive. Many of them in the city are just filthy with sloth-like staff. Close them all.

Kojak

Hes correct. Hipsters are too poor to afford Starbucks on a regular basis.

As long as the corner guy is selling coffee at 50-75 cents, Starbucks has some catching up to do. Dunkin Donuts is better anyway.

brandonz

Twakum, it's the yuppies who go to Starbucks. You've got the wrong stereotypical white subculture.

twakum

The comment about the bathroom is right on. A crowded Starbucks full of hipsters writing their "screenplays" on their laptops has GOT TO STOP, Starbucks, are you listening? Drop the WiFi, make people leave if they dont buy anything, and fire half the staff. One surly comment from a starbucks worker kills a lot of peoples desire to go back. At one downtown store, the staff tells people who complain about the line "Sorry, we dont have enough people".