On 1 July 2008, Starbucks announced the closure of around 600 outlets in the US. More drastically, on 29 July they then announced that 61 of the 84 Australian outlets would be closing.
Over on BeyondDigitalMedia, Chris Bishops posted an interesting examination of the challenges Starbucks has faced in the Australian market and goes on to predict that Gloria Jeans will suffer a similar fate.
Although the US closures represent a far smaller proportion of total outlets than here in Australia, they still represent a striking turnaround in the previously relentless growth of the coffee giant. Could this presage a significant change in the fortunes of one of the darlings of the MBA set? Or is it simply the evolution from growth to maturity?
The Evolution of Starbucks
I have to thank Mike for the data in this chart, which was painstakingly extracted from the Starbucks company timeline. The 2008 figure takes into account the 616 US closures (exact figure taken from the full list of closures) and the 61 Australian closures. Admittedly, since the timeline accentuates the positive, there may be past closures not accounted for in the chart. Also, any new store openings in 2008 are not accounted for.
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Take a look at this article from the Big Picture blog detailing an extraordinary amount of retall closures going on in the USA in the past few weeks :
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/08/the-us-banking.html
This is bigger than just coffee!
Why does that chart have ~20 years of 0 stores? I’ve deducted marks in the past for that kind of sloppy graphery…
This is definitly worth a comment! So I did so, on the Beyond Digital Media site…
@Michael Michael: that’s just your eyes letting you down. It actually starts at one in 1971 (when the first Starbucks store opened by Pike’s Market in Seattle). The first jump up is 1987 when they opened 17 new stores.
@Matthew: I’m sure that the broader economic weakness is a significant factor in the US. Here in Australia, there seems to be a more specific problem for Starbucks.
@Brendan: Just read your comment over on BeyondDigitalMedia.
I like it – thanks to the Mule’s disparagement of my eyesight, I’ve also commented on Beyond Digital Media. I smell a drop in market share for the Mule! Graph that!
@Michael Michael: have a look here if you would like to make a closer study of the underlying data.
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Now Maverick Capital and other large investors have bailed out of Starbucks. Maybe they read this post!