Starbucks opening left, right and centre!!

ongarboy

I see Starbucks have just opened yet another cafe on O'Connell St up from Clerys by the Spire. This follows openings in Rathmines, Tallaght and Dun Laoghaire in the last few weeks. In the city centre alone, there are 2 more in Westmoreland Street, one in Ilac Centre, IFSC, College Green, Chatham Street, Dawson Street, upstairs in BT2, Harcourt Street and many more in the suburbs.

Are people in favour of this domination from the big chains or do they prefer their independents? I know Costa and Insomnia have as many or more outlets (O'Briens seems to have faded from the scene since the Celtic Tiger) but Starbucks is probably the most prolific (the McDonalds of coffee shops) so garners more attention (good and bad).

I feel the expansions are a good thing as it must be a sign of an improving economy if they are opening so many however the drawback is that the generic and identical nature of these outlets lack the uniqueness and charm of one off independent cafes.

jimmii

At least it means that the unit won't be available again in a couple of months its been vacant for ages. I had a look at it the rent seemed really low but figured the hassle on O'Connell St just wouldn't be worth it!

uch

The way I see it, ..

They create a few Jobs.
Nobody forces me to use them.

ScottSF

One of the best features of Dublin (IMHO of course) is the huge number of independently owned coffee shops all around city centre. There are tons! I never go to Starbucks because I prefer something that isn't cookie-cutter and think their coffee is far from the best. I always try to encourage my friends to go to independent coffee shops as much as possible. I hope everyone does the same because we are not lacking for choice of where to grab a quality cup of coffee.

It is disappointing to see more Starbucks opening up in Dublin, especially because in the states they led to the closing of too many small coffee shops. And in London while I do like Pret-A-Manger, they are absolutely everywhere which takes away from the enjoyment of strolling around different neighborhoods.

SebBerkovich

I really don't think Starbucks is going to touch the market of people who enjoy dublin's indie coffee shops - they're not the first chain in dublin to try.

I go and sit in a coffee shop because i like being there, part of that is the coffee itself but for me - it's the atmosphere and the staff - starbucks doesn't even get close to a place where i feel i could enjoy a coffee. I'm pretty sure i'm not alone in that either.

For those who like the sort of thing that starbucks offers, enjoy! But for those who like a little more heart to where they spend their time - dublin has lots of great options.

nosietoes

What I have noticed in Dublin is that for nearly every Starbucks that opens we are getting a new small independent coffee shop.

The big brands use huge marketing campaigns to persuade us to drink more coffee...which in turn pushes more people to look around the corner for the independent alternative if that is their habit.

neris

obriens turned into the bagel bar. the original obriens got into money troubles and bagel bar took them over. theres an insomina opening in sutton cross at some stage which is a pity

January

There's still plenty of O'Briens around...

tfak85

I'm not a Starbucks fan. I absolutely love the amount of independent coffee shops in Dublin, so many quality places to choose from.

Friend of mine asked me to meet in the Rathmines one and I refused, there are so many small cafes there - the guilt would be incredible.

The coffee isn't very nice either.

liffeylite

As others have said, Starbucks are certainly on the rise, but the sheer number of independent coffee shops in Dublin is vast and something the city should be proud of.

I have no doubt that outside of London there is nowhere in the Uk and Ireland with the choice of independents Dublin has.
And its not just central Dublin, places dotted all over the suburbs too.

So I don't really see Starbucks making inroads in cutting the local businesses.

There is room enough for all.:)

carlmango11

ongarboy wrote: »

O'Briens seems to have faded from the scene since the Celtic Tiger

Well maybe if they charged less or gave more food. I actually love O'Brien's but can no longer justify paying €5 for a small toasted sandwich. The mark up must be massive. You can get a chicken fillet baguette for less. For €1 extra you can get a monstrous burrito loaded with meat and toppings or a footlong Subway with a drink.

WoollyRedHat

I'm not a coffee chain fan in general, the prices they charge for a cup of average coffee is ridicolous, verging on 3 euro, please..

The only time I'm willing to spend as much is in Bewleys, where they do up a good brew at least.

corpo3030

Only Starbucks I've been in is the new one in the Square. The service is terrible, there's no system in place and the staff keep getting in each other's way. I was left waiting 12 minutes for a regular americano last Friday. I won't bother with any of the others if they're like that. Any cafe I've worked in had a system for the counter/serving staff, it's not rocket science.

Seaneh

When the are coffee shops like The Bald Barrista in Dublin City Centre, why anyone would choose to drink ****e like starbucks is beyond me.

jill_valentine

I'll go to a nice coffee place to sit down. I'll grab something in Starbucks when I'm running around town.

Fussgangerzone

I think Starbucks is mostly there for the tourists, like a lot of things. I think Starbucks is overpriced and a bit up their own bum, considering the coffee is pretty average. Unless you add in a load of golden syrup and hundreds and thousands or whatever it is that people with the palate of a 3 year old are drinking this week.

Hopefully a lot of visitors will try something more one-off and have a more memorable experience. As for people with no imagination, we can't force them to branch out.

languagenerd

I used to go to Starbucks a lot in my first and second years of college (forgive me, I was young and naïve! ). I think there's a huge a variety between the different branches in terms of atmosphere: while I find the drinks are all a bit bland now, there are some branches that I'd be more likely to sit in than others. I think they fill a gap sometimes - the new one in Tallaght is a welcome addition to the Square which had no real coffee shops at all until 2 weeks ago, plus new jobs are always a good thing - but when I'm in town, my days of spending ridiculous money for a bland coffee and sandwich are over

Dublin city centre has so many independent coffee shops. I'm constantly finding new ones and my favourite changes all the time. It's kind of surprising how quickly Dublin has embraced coffee (when Ireland was all about tea until quite recently!), so long may it last

Aard

Seaneh wrote: »

When the are coffee shops like The Bald Barrista in Dublin City Centre, why anyone would choose to drink ****e like starbucks is beyond me.

Bald Barista and their ilk are essentially offering an entirely different product to Starbucks.

Seaneh

Aard wrote: »

Bald Barista and their ilk are essentially offering an entirely different product to Starbucks.

Yeah, good coffee.

Charlie76

Starbucks strategy very simple. They open left right and centre in a general area resulting in closure of smaller or local competitors. Then Starbucks close down their shops usually leaving just one open. Check out how they did this in the ifsc.

carlmango11

jill_valentine wrote: »

I'll go to a nice coffee place to sit down. I'll grab something in Starbucks when I'm running around town.

Rhymes

Aard

Seaneh wrote: »

Yeah, good coffee.

Some people don't want that. They want the Starbucks experience. Or milky/sugary drinks.

Aard

Charlie76 wrote: »

Starbucks strategy very simple. They open left right and centre in a general area resulting in closure of smaller or local competitors. Then Starbucks close down their shops usually leaving just one open. Check out how they did this in the ifsc.

Where was the second shop in the IFSC? I'm aware of the one in CHQ.

L1011

neris wrote: »

obriens turned into the bagel bar. the original obriens got into money troubles and bagel bar took them over. theres an insomina opening in sutton cross at some stage which is a pity

O'Briens and Bagel Factory are the same master franchise and people can swap between them if they wish. One branch doing this does not mean the brand has changed. The master franchise was, however, bought by Abrakebabra.

markpb

Aard wrote: »

Where was the second shop in the IFSC? I'm aware of the one in CHQ.

Right outside CHQ on Mayor Square, between M&S and BoI (I think)

Cianos

Aard wrote: »

Some people don't want that. They want the Starbucks experience. Or milky/sugary drinks.

What experience? They're soulless.

Aard

Cianos wrote: »

What experience? They're soulless.

Im not defending them or talking them up, but you cant deny that people go there, and Im sure that they enjoy it.

ezra_pound

In no logo Naomi Klein explains the Starbucks strategy. Which is basically exactly what is happening in Dublin. Serious big bully stuff.

Must read.

ezra_pound

"There have been other, more brazen ways in which Starbucks has used its size and deep pockets to its competitive advantage. Until the practice began creating controversy a few years back, Starbucks' real-estate strategy was to stake out a popular independent café in a well-trafficked, funky location and simply poach the lease from under it."



"A Comforting Third Place" is the phrase Starbucks uses to promote itself in its newsletters and evangelical annual reports. This is not just another non-space like Wal-Mart or McDonalds, it's an intimate nook where sophisticated people can share "coffee... community... camaraderie... connection."

Everything about New Age chains like Starbucks is designed to assure us that they are a different breed from the strip-mall franchises of yesterday. This isn't dreck for the masses, it's intelligent furniture, it's cosmetics as political activism, it's the bookstore as an "old-world library",' it's the coffee shop that wants to stare deep into your eyes and "connect."

But there's a catch. The need for more intimate spaces designed to tempt people to linger may indeed provide a powerful counterpoint to the cavernous big boxes, but these two retail trends are not as far apart as they appear at first. For instance, the mechanics of Starbucks' dizzying expansion during the past thirteen years has more in common with Wal-Mart's plan for global domination than the brand managers at the folksy coffee chain like to admit. Rather than dropping an enormous big box on the edge of town, Starbucks' policy is to drop "clusters" of outlets in urban areas already dotted with cafes and espresso bars. This strategy relies just as heavily on an economy of scale as Wal-Mart's does and the effect on competition is much the same. Since Starbucks is explicit about its desire to enter markets only where it can "become the leading retailer and brand of coffee," the company has concentrated its store-a-day growth in relatively few areas. Instead of opening a few stores in every city in the world, or even in North America, Starbucks waits until it can blitz an entire area and spread, to quote Globe and Mail columnist John Barber, "like head lice through a kindergarten." It's a highly aggressive strategy, and it involves something the company calls "cannibalization."

The idea is to saturate an area with stores until the coffee competition is so fierce that sales drop even in individual Starbucks outlets.

In 1993, for instance, when Starbucks had just 275 outlets concentrated in a few U.S. states, per-store sales increased by 19 percent from the previous year. By 1994, store sales growth was only 9 percent, in 1996 it dipped to 7 percent, and in 1997 Starbucks saw only a 5 percent sales growth; in new stores, it was as low as 3 percent. (See Table 6.3, Appendix, page 473).

Understandably, the closer the outlets get to each other, the more they begin to poach or "cannibalize" each other's clientele—even in hyper-caffeinated cities like Seattle and Vancouver people can only suck back so many lattes before they float into the Pacific.

Starbucks' 1995 annual report explains: "As part of its expansion strategy of clustering store in existing markets, Starbucks has experienced a certain level of cannibalization of existing stores by new stores as the store concentration has increased, but management believes such cannibalization has been justified by the incremental sales and return on new store investment." What that means is that while sale were slowing at individual stores, the total sales of all the chain's stores combined continued to rise—doubling, in fact, between 1995 and 1997. Put another way, Starbucks the company was expanding its market while its individual outlets were losing market share, largely to other Starbucks outlets (see Table 6.4, Appendix, page 473).

It also helped Starbucks, no doubt, that its cannibalization strategy preys not only on other Starbucks outlets but equally on its real competitors, independently run coffee shops and restaurants. And, unlike Starbucks, these lone businesses can only profit from one store at a time. The bottom line is that clustering, like big-boxing, is a competitive retail strategy that is only an option for a large chain that can afford to take a beating on individual store in order to reap a larger, long-term branding goal. It also explains why critics usually claim that companies like Starbucks' are preying on small businesses, while the chains themselves deny it, admitting only that they are expanding and creating new markets for their products. Both are true, but the chains' aggressive strategy of market expansion has the added bonus of simultaneously taking out competitors.

There have been other, more brazen ways in which Starbucks has used its size and deep pockets to its competitive advantage.

EyeSight

I don't get all the hate for starbucks.
Sure their coffee isn't great but they do those coffee shake things and frappees really really well and that's something most independent places don't do well(if they do it at all). You may not like those(i don't) but guess what? Load of people love them and want them. If people want to buy them they can and will - Free market

Secondly they are a reliable place all over. They are usually open late and always have free wifi. If i am in a foreign country and need wifi, i'll go there

i always use independent chains where i can, sometimes it's hard to find one with wifi and free seating that's open late. But i won't moan when people use starbucks. Besides, as mentioned earlier in this thread, they're advertising for coffee also benefits independent chains

haro124

I really think that they'll have a second larger store on o'Connell street as soon as suitable premises becomes available. They're also opening in Cork next month so could we be about to see major expansion in Ireland? The stores are no longer owned by Starbucks but by the people who own the TGIF licence in Ireland and a few other chains