Stock coffee guide: What went wrong with the Starbucks curbside pickup test?

Starbucks and Amap launched Roadside Pickup in March, letting drivers order ahead and collect coffee without leaving the car. During the National Day holiday, a travel package event with a pet tote bag ran short of stock, and users reported route matching errors, closed stores still accepting orders, and an extra 3 yuan service fee.

The service began with 150 stores in Beijing and Shanghai before expanding to Guangzhou for the holiday. This is less a stock coffee guide than a case study in scaling: limited inventory, inaccurate pickup points, and unclear pricing undercut the convenience the feature was meant to deliver.

Since its launch in March this year, the "Roadside Pickup" service jointly launched by Starbucks and Amap has aimed to provide a convenient coffee-buying experience for drivers and passengers during rush hours and on busy road sections. However, the special event launched during the National Day holiday sparked considerable controversy. Due to limited inventory, many customers were unable to get the cute pet tote bag given away in the event; at the same time, the ordering system had problems such as inaccurate route matching and closed stores still being able to accept orders, greatly reducing the user experience. In addition, the extra 3 yuan service fee also made some users feel it was unreasonable. Although Starbucks hoped to use this service to expand into new scenarios, the various inconveniences in actual operation led quite a few netizens to question whether it was inadequately prepared. This article will sort out the highlights of the event and user feedback in detail, and explore room for improvement in the Roadside Pickup service.

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During the long National Day holiday, many friends choose to travel by car. How can they solve the problem if they want a cup of coffee on the way? International chain brand Starbucks launched a new service for this purpose, jointly creating the "Roadside Pickup (Drive-through)" function with Amap.

As early as March 21 this year, Starbucks China officially launched the Roadside Pickup service together with Amap. This service is mainly aimed at drivers and passengers who need coffee during peak commuting hours or on busy road sections. Users only need to set their destination and pickup points along the route in the Amap App in advance. After placing an order, Starbucks baristas will make the drinks according to the estimated arrival time. Once the vehicle arrives, users can roll down the window and receive the coffee from the barista. In the early stage after the service was launched, it covered only 150 Starbucks stores in Beijing and Shanghai.

During the National Day holiday, Roadside Pickup specially launched a travel package event, covering cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. The event required ordering two designated drinks to receive a cute pet tote dual-use bag. Because the bag was adorable in design, it attracted the attention of many customers. Many netizens posted screenshots of successful orders on social platforms, saying that Roadside Pickup was indeed convenient, and quite a few guide posts teaching others how to place orders also appeared.

However, this event also drew criticism from many netizens. First, the number of giveaway bags was too small. According to the event rules, the total inventory of gifts was only 10,000, distributed across 6 event cities, leaving each store with only a dozen or so bags in stock, which made it impossible for many customers who sincerely wanted one to get it. Some netizens reported: "For the 7-day National Day event, it was out of stock early on the first day." This triggered a large number of complaints: "If you can't afford to run an event, then don't run it, so maddening" "The inventory is so small, it was gone in an instant."

Second, there were also problems in the ordering process. Users needed to enter their destination in the Amap App and then find nearby stores along the route, but if there was no suitable store on the route to accept the order, the order could not be completed. In addition, some netizens found that some stores were not open during the National Day holiday but could still accept orders normally, causing customers to make a wasted trip.

Furthermore, the stores were too busy. During the morning rush hour, no employees had time to come out and deliver orders, so customers had to park on the roadside and go into the store to pick up their orders themselves, causing inconvenience. Moreover, ordering through Roadside Pickup also required an extra 3 yuan service fee. Netizens felt that they had not enjoyed the convenience of roadside pickup but still had to pay a service fee, which seemed rather unreasonable.

In fact, Starbucks launched this event to increase the visibility of "Roadside Pickup," attract more customers to use it, and develop services for new scenarios beyond the "third space." But since this function was launched in March, it has exposed quite a few problems: inconvenient operation, calculation errors in Amap, closed stores still being able to accept orders, insufficient staffing, and so on. Netizens believe that "Roadside Pickup was not done well at all; it feels like they are using us as guinea pigs for experiments." Starbucks still needs to make good improvements to this function in response to these problems, and it is hoped that it will get better and better in the future.

Image source: Internet

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.