Coffee lovers are turning their back on Starbucks, and it won’t be easy for the coffee giant to win back the love it lost.
According to a report released on Friday The Wall Street JournalCustomers are fed up with rising costs, long wait times and what some see as the company’s inept political posturing.
The onslaught caused Starbucks to see a 6% drop in U.S. orders in the quarter ended June 30.
For Dan Palmer, rising prices have made his daily mango dragonfruit refreshment worthless.
“Prices have gone up a lot,” a 66-year-old woman who lives in a Chicago suburb told the Journal, pointing to coffee costing more than $6 a cup.
“This is not a transaction in any way.”
Palmer isn’t the only one making a conscious decision to cut back on eating out in the face of a looming recession: About 40% of consumers report spending less on takeout, according to a survey by Revenue Management Solutions.
Many other companies are also turning to cheaper competitors.
Brad Pearl of Spokane, Washington, was a dedicated Starbucks customer until he started finding the prices and wait times too long. Now he frequents a local coffee shop that offers cheaper options, saving him about $150 a month.
“It’s really extravagant,” Pearl said of the cost.
Those who were willing to pay were put off by another annoyance: long wait times, despite mobile ordering.
According to a Technomic Ignite Consumer survey, in 2024, more than 30% of customers reported waiting as long as 15 minutes after placing an order, with some customers waiting as long as 30 minutes.
Even Starbucks’ former CEO Howard Schultz admitted that the company’s mobile ordering system was flawed and that it was filtering out 30% of its business.
“Everybody comes together and all of a sudden there’s a mosh pit. That’s not Starbucks,” Schultz said on the “Acquired” podcast in June..
Starbucks has tried to lure back former customers to its chain with a flurry of discounts and promotions, as well as by restructuring its workflow for faster production, but there’s little refuge from the cultural storms it has repeatedly faced.
Both ideological left and right have targeted the coffee giant for years, with both sides calling for a nationwide boycott.
The chain has previously been criticized for not explicitly referencing Christmas on its red holiday cups, which politicians like Donald Trump have claimed is anti-Christian, while left-wing leaders have accused Starbucks of financially supporting Israel, but Schultz has adamantly said neither is true.
Recently, Starbucks has come under fire for crushing attempts by employees to unionize.
Despite its challenges, Starbucks remains one of the top-performing companies in the US, and the market has continued to grow since reporting disappointing quarterly earnings.
Since June, Starbucks shares have risen nearly 17%.
