Jun
8
We have conducted a survey on trends in tea sales at Starbucks. We called 50 Starbucks stores and asked the following questions:
1. Do you sell tea and tea based drinks?
2. Are tea drink sales increasing versus a year ago.
3. If yes to #2, why are tea sales increasing?
The results were interesting. Yes, Starbucks does sell tea, although four respondents said they did not sell tea which suggests something about tea sales at those stores or knowledge of tea sales by those workers. We’ll chalk those up to sampling error and go with the 46 respondents who said yes to these questions.
Tea sales were reported as up against a year ago by 30 out of our 50 respondents. Some respondents cited weather as a reason, like our southeastern U.S. respondent who reported the heat drove up sales of Green Tea Frappucino’s recently. The biggest driver in the pick-up in tea sales was that customers were learning more about the health benefits of tea and were seeking out healthier drink options. The other interesting trend in our survey was that drinking tea was deemed to be more fashionable and a sign of being with “it”. New York City and San Francisco responses cited being fashionable as a driver of increased tea sales.
Tazo Tea’s and Green Tea Frappucino’s were cited as popular tea options at Starbucks and a few barristas we spoke with mentioned that new flavors and drink combinations based on tea were coming out soon. Could Starbucks be moving to capitalize on the tea trend? In the other direction we plan on surveying Starbucks again to track their doughnut offerings as those seem to be spreading as well. Looks like Starbucks could be looking to draw in more of both the health conscious and and the health un-conscious consumers. But for now, we’ll keep our eyes out for new tea options at a Starbucks near you.
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