Starbucks Product Analysis

Product

A product is a thing that can be offered to a market to satisfy a want or need and abstract value (Vliet, 2013). There are 2 main types of product, there are consumer product and business product. What Starbucks selling is consumer products.

In the past, Starbucks’s products are only limited to coffee when it starts the business in the year 1971. However, the first store in Malaysia established in KL Plaza on 17th December of 1998 where they offered a variety of products besides coffee. Products included beverages and foods such as coffee bean, tea, chocolate, Frappuccino, snacks, pastries, cakes, sandwiches, tumbles and etc. Now, Frappuccino is their pillar brand where it is legally trademarked by the Starbucks.

Starbucks has applied

Starbucks has its very own advantage compared to his competitors because they possessed the technology and expertise in verifying the quality of their coffee beans are top-notch before they used it in their products (Figure 1.1). In addition, their product is mostly made of environment friendly ingredients such as reusable cup whereas most of the competitors could not achieve the recycling and reducing waste concept due to the high cost involved. Furthermore, Starbucks doesn’t franchise its stores to the private market. It’s simply because the mentality has a lot to do with maintaining high company standards from stores to stores (Bonander, 2007). Next, they offer specialty coffee selections, flavours, and variety. For example, frappucinos, tea, and holiday specialty drinks in different seasons. Lastly, Starbucks runs its business for few purposes besides profit, they actually contribute some profits earn by selling certain products to social welfare. For example, every banana-based product’s profits are contributed to constructing a Community Computer Center for the children of the village where Starbucks purchasing banana from (Connecting Communities,

Branding helps consumers to identify the products that might benefit them and it say something about the products’ quality and consistency. The Starbucks brand is one of the most recognised and admired in the world. Starbucks is using Siren as their brand mark because it represents the romance and creativity that inspired the founders of Starbucks and it’s gone through 3 evolutions from 1971 to 2011(Figure 1.5). Now, they became one of the most infamous coffee shops and dominant player in the coffee market. This is because their brand focuses on three components which is coffee, people and stores. These components are the facts that Starbucks is dedicated to keeping customers satisfied. When consumers think of Starbucks, they will subconsciously think of it as a best place to relax, rest and to gather. This is because Starbucks provides a very comfortable environment (Figure1.6) with soft background music and serving their high quality coffees to let customers rest and reduce