What Happens When a Starbucks Store Closes but Orders Continue?

A customer bought a Starbucks Frappuccino coupon on Meituan, placed an order for a Matcha Cream Frappuccino, and received a pickup code showing the drink was being prepared. When arriving at the Xi'an store in Suning Plaza on Jiefang Road, the customer found a closure notice, a disconnected phone, and a mall under renovation.

Starbucks customer service said the refund had to go through Meituan, while Meituan said it could not reach the merchant and could not refund. The two sides passed the issue back and forth. After the customer's feedback, Starbucks shut down the ordering channel, Meituan refunded the amount and stopped delivery, and netizens discussed wrong-store pickup and the 12315 complaint channel.

A customer bought a Starbucks Frappuccino coupon on Meituan, successfully placed an order and received a pickup code, but when walking to the store to collect the drink, discovered the store had already closed down. The store phone was disconnected, and Starbucks customer service and Meituan customer service passed the buck to each other over refund responsibility, leaving the consumer in a predicament. Investigation found that the store is located at Suning Plaza on Jiefang Road in Xi'an, where the mall is undergoing full-scale renovation, and the store had actually ceased operation—yet the official app still showed it as open, and orders could even be placed through Feikuai. Ultimately, after the customer's feedback, Starbucks shut down the ordering channel, Meituan refunded the order amount and stopped delivery service. The incident also sparked discussions among netizens about wrong-store pickup service and the 12315 complaint channel.

▲

Click to follow | Daily specialty coffee culture magazine Coffee Workshop

Recently, a netizen shared his bizarre experience—a Starbucks order that had clearly been placed successfully turned out to be at a store that had long since closed down when he arrived.

The customer recounted that the afternoon before last, he came across a Starbucks Frappuccino promotional ad on Meituan, and impulsively bought a coupon. He then picked the Starbucks store closest to him and ordered a Matcha Cream Frappuccino. The page immediately popped up a pickup code and showed "preparing."

However, when he walked to the store to collect his order, he saw a closure notice posted on the door, with no sign of business activity inside. Faced with this sudden situation, the customer immediately called the store's phone to try to reach the merchant, but the number had been disconnected and he couldn't get through at all.

The consumer then reported the store's situation to Starbucks customer service. The representative responded that since he had purchased a Meituan coupon, the refund needed to be handled through the purchasing platform. But Meituan customer service told the user that because they could not reach the merchant, the platform also could not process a refund for him.

The back-and-forth buck-passing between the third-party platform and the brand left the consumer at a loss. Out of frustration, he posted online asking for help on how to successfully get a refund, while also reminding local netizens to avoid this already-closed store when placing orders.

It is understood that the Starbucks store where the customer placed his order is located at Suning Plaza on Jiefang Road in Xi'an, and the mall is undergoing full-scale renovation due to local policies.

When the renovation project began, brands such as Starbucks and Pizza Hut on the ground-floor retail level were still operating. Some local residents said that although construction scaffolding had already been erected around the mall, a green banner reading "Starbucks is open" still hung outside the Starbucks store, and customers could still normally buy drinks inside.

However, according to an article published on August 16 by the WeChat public account Northwest Commercial Real Estate Hub, the current status of Suning Plaza shows that this Starbucks store has recently been in a closed state. Logically, consumers should not have been able to place orders at this already-closed store.

But in fact, not only the third-party platform—even the official Starbucks app showed the store as open, and many users reported that they could still place orders normally through Feikuai. Some netizens speculated that this situation may have been caused by Starbucks' internal system adjustment accidentally changing the store's status back to open.

In response, experienced netizens suggested that consumers who had already placed orders could go to other nearby stores and explain the situation to staff, and should be able to get their drinks through Starbucks' wrong-store pickup service. Others suggested that in addition to the brand's customer service hotline, customers could also call complaint hotlines such as 12315 to protect their rights through official channels.

Today, the customer said that last night Starbucks officially received his feedback about the store's situation and has now closed the store's ordering channel. Meituan also proactively contacted the consumer, and after communicating with Starbucks, refunded the order amount and shut down the store's delivery service.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

Disclaimer: Some images in this article are from the internet. For some content on the website, such as images, we will respect the original author's copyright and indicate the source. However, due to the large volume, some images and texts may not have been credited in time; please forgive us. If the original author has any disputes, they may contact the website for handling. Once verified, we will correct it immediately. Compiled and edited by "Coffee Workshop"; please indicate the source when reposting. If there is infringement, please inform us for deletion. Thank you~!

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