2 years ago I would have agreed with you, and to a point I still do - it seems like it would be simple to just walk in with cash and walk out with a coffee. But, it's undeniable how willing customers are to avoid friction, especially when they haven't had any caffeine yet.
Also, Starbucks is on pace to process over 15% of their annual revenue through their mobile app this year, it's by far the most popular payments app in the U.S. and shows no signs of slowing down.
Good questions all around! What's surprising is that the 220M figure only accounts for daily purchases. Americans actually drink over 400M cups of coffee every day. A cup is definitely an odd metric to measure by, it's just the simplest term to define a coffee or espresso-based drink.
To clarify, this is measuring the U.S.-only, the global market is obviously much larger. I know it may seem high, but it's a lot easier to put into perspective that the average American over 18 years old drinks 2 cups of coffee per day.
In terms of competition, because coffee is just now warming up to the concept of pick-up, and the majority of the order-ahead market is delivery-focused, we are at an advantage for optimizing that pick up experience and gaining traction from there. We partner with shops that offer every mobile ordering service, we partner with others that only want one - it'll certainly be something we keep an eye on as we grow.
Ah, sorry about that. Yeah there are quite a few stats maintained on the ssca.org website. Harvard also maintains statistics about coffee consumption, and Huffington Post did a big expose on it, as well. There's also a lot of good information from the National Restaurant Association, Statista, Mordor Intelligence and Mintel.
Completely agree with a lot of your points, we run into coffee shops every day that are hesitant to offer something like this. That said, resigning themselves to the fact that a chain exists is a surefire way to go out of business. Most of the shops we speak with are actively looking for ways to maintain the quality you've noted, while simultaneously attracting more customers.
In terms of scale, we're asked about fragmentation a lot. Chains like Starbucks and Dunkin' will never use Cloosiv, but there's no reason to believe that as our network grows, that we can't support large regional chains (Joe Muggs, Dollop) and even national chains (Caribou, La Colombe, etc.).
For now, we're hyper-focused on building out that network, by adding any interested shop as quickly as possible. That may appear fragmented across the country, but as we increase our speed we'll be able hit a critical mass quickly.
I think your points of targetting large regional chains and not-Starbucks national chains are great. I think you may achieve more impactful market acquisition there.
> resigning themselves to the fact that a chain exists is a surefire way to go out of business
Saying this to a local coffeeshop is a surefire way to get them to not only not listen to you, but to tell all their friends about how much you suck. This is absolutely wrong. This may work in selling to someone struggling, but the very fact that any other solidly-in-business coffeeshop exists proves your argument quite obviously incorrect.
Sorry about that, I didn't do a great job of clarifying. What I meant to say is that we haven't encountered that type of pushback nearly as much as we anticipated. Owners tend to understand the concept and most are interested in improving their competitive advantage. The primary concerns we face are around fulfillment and customer expectation, but we'll likely continue to run into more shops that are simply uninterested in this sales channel.
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