Introduction

Starbucks is reportedly losing its market share at an alarming rate due to several factors in the highly volatile industry. The coffee company stock prices are declining despite the overall improvement in the US stock market. Between April and June, Wall Street reported an 11.3 percent decrease in stock prices while the overall market went up by 4 percent. Starbucks is suffering from market saturation as evidenced by the closure of some of its stores. The once dominant and award-winning brand is waning due to cutthroat competition from new beverage industries, and their inability to adapt to the changing customer service techniques.

Competition at Starbucks

For many years, Starbucks faced little or no competition both locally and internationally. Its strong business model could not be matched in terms of store setting, beverages, customer service, and culture. Due to this fact, sales and profit margins ballooned as new startups had their sales revenues headed south. According to the CEO, Howard Schultz, their ‘third place’ model aims at providing comfort first then serve coffee (Taylor, 2018). The focus is on giving a home or office comfort by designing their outlets to provide customers with an opportunity to use their laptops, hold meetings and make calls as they take coffee