Fed-up customers reveal why Starbucks is no longer the king of coffee
Coffee lovers are turning their backs on Starbucks — and there’s no easy fix for the coffee giant to restore the lost love.
According to a report published Friday by the Wall Street Journal, customers are tired of the rising costs, long wait times, and what some view as the company’s bad political takes.
The onslaught cost Starbucks a 6% drop in US orders in the quarter ended June 30.
For Dan Palmer, the skyrocketing price is no longer worth his daily mango dragonfruit refresher.
“The prices have gone up — a lot,” the 66-year-old Chicago suburbanite told the WSJ, pointing out that each cup costs upward of $6.
“It’s not a deal in any sense of the word.”
Palmer is not the only one who has consciously stopped eating out in the face of a looming recession — nearly 40% of consumers reported spending less on takeout, according to a survey by Revenue Management Solutions.
Many others are turning toward cheaper competition.
Brad Pearl, of Spokane, Washington was a dedicated Starbucks customer until the high prices and long waits became too much. Now he frequents a local coffee shop with cheaper options, saving him roughly $150 per month.
“It’s really a luxury,” Pearl said of the cost.
Those who were willing to fork over the money have been turned off by another nuisance: long wait times, despite mobile ordering.
In 2024, more than 30% of customers reported waiting as long as 15 minutes for their order, with some even sitting around for up to half an hour, a survey by Technomic Ignite Consumer shows.
Even former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz admitted there was a failure in the mobile ordering system, which filters 30% of business.
“Everyone shows up, and all of a sudden we’ve got a mosh pit, and that’s not Starbucks,” Schultz said on the “Acquired” podcast in June.
Starbucks has tried to entice former customers back to the chain through a flurry of discount offers and promotions, as well as restructuring workflow for faster output, but the company has little wriggle room for the culture firestorm it has repeatedly found itself in.
Both the ideological left and right have set their sights on the coffee giant over the years, with each side of the aisle calling for nationwide boycotts.
The chain was once criticized for not explicitly referencing Christmas on his red holiday cups, a move politicians like Donald Trump claimed was anti-Christian, while left-leaning leaders accused Starbucks of financially supporting Israel — both of which Schulz adamantly said were not true.
More recently, Starbucks has drawn criticism for allegedly squashing employees’ attempts at unionizing.
