e ice creams.
Starbucks also exploited an opportunity to sell additional products to the Company's core coffee consumers. The Company's retail stores now sell several food products ยท cookies, doughnuts, muffins, and more. The beverage list has been expanded beyond coffee to include teas, organic milk, ginger ale, and soy-based drinks. The stores also stock for sale products such as coffee-preparation equipment and supplies, seasonal products, and games. Some stores also allow customers to purchase and download recorded music (Holmes, Bennett, Carlisle, & Dawson, 2002).
Non-beverage products accounted for approximately 16 percent of total revenues at Starbucks in 2004 (Starbucks Corporation, 2005). Specialty sales increased 19 percent in 2004 over the level of 2003.
Starbucks also offers customers in many of the Company's North American and European retail coffee shops access to high-speed wireless Internet service. The service is a Wi-Fi network. Customers using the service in a Starbucks retail coffee shop can use e-mail services, surf the Web, or download multimedia presentations. Customers receive 24-hours of free wireless broadband service with Starbucks. After the free introductory service, customers can continue to use the service if they subscribe to the service. A variety of monthly subscription plans are available (Holmes, Bennett, Carlisle, & Dawson, 2002).
Starbucks is an American corporation that provides it core product - coffee - prepared a variety of ways. Most coffee offerings are espresso-based. The Company's product, however, are more than just coffee (or any other beverage). Starbucks is a cultural icon that purports to sell coffee primarily, but some observers believe that coffee is simply a stalking horse and that following the stalking horse is the marketing of a cultural phenomenon (Jung, 2002). Jung (2002) contends that the company is marketing the "Starbucks experience" (p. 1). The ...