Starbucks delivers in China, and now the U.S.Alibaba
This would be old news in China. Starbucks will start delivering coffee in the U.S. through a partnership with UberEats. Starbucks started doing this first a few months ago in China with Alibaba’s Ele.me delivery service. In China’s large cities, Starbucks customers skip the line, click on a smartphone app to order and pay, and grab their favorite brew while it’s still hot via Ele.me speedy couriers.
Up until now, this on-demand service would not be possible on Main Street USA. But here is just the latest example of where the future is already here, in China, while the U.S. lags behind. In fact, Luckin Coffee, a lower-priced challenger to Starbucks in China, beat Starbucks to this business model and is gaining market share.
In the U.S., Starbucks plans to begin offering the delivery service to about one-quarter of its more than 8,000 company-operated stores by early next year following a test in Miami. In China, a pilot of the Starbucks delivery service started in August in Beijing and Shanghai, and it’s expanding from 150 stores to more than 2,000 stores in 30 China cities. Plans are also underway for a Starbucks hub to open in Alibaba’s “new retail” supermarkets, Hema, in Shanghai and Hangzhou.
Starbucks has become a poster brand for in China for “New Retail” or digitalized retail that Alibaba and others are touting. New retail is about bringing technology into the stores — artificial intelligence, augmented reality, robots, QR codes, mobile payments, mobile apps and speedy deliveries. I saw much of this technology at a new huge Starbucks Roastery in Shanghai. See prior post at Forbes: Jack Ma and Howard Schultz founder friendship.
Rebecca A. Fannin is an editor, author and expert on global innovation and investment trends. She leads Silicon Dragon Ventures, a news, events and research group formed in 2010 to focus on covering the world’s leading startup hubs. Well known for its series of tech innovati…