The Future

Starbucks Will Roll Out Coffee Delivery Next Year

Hot and fresh to your doorstep.
Hot and fresh to your doorstep. Photo: Shutterstock

After announcing lackluster quarterly sales yesterday — revenue rose 10 percent, but still did not meet expectations — Starbucks chief executive Howard Schultz teased big news about the chain’s next frontier, which will be coffee delivery connected to the chain’s mobile-ordering app. A launch date is scheduled for late next year, and Schultz says he envisions a grande future where everyone has “the ability to create a standing order of Starbucks delivered hot to your desk daily.” Iced or blended, too, if that’s more your thing.

Along with those smaller footprint Express stores, the latte-handoff scheme is part of the chain’s big plan to extend its overall reach way beyond traditional brick-and-mortar stores and really be everywhere. In any case, whatever Starbucks delivery ends up looking like, it’ll no doubt be an improvement on version 1.0, called Mobile Pour, which rolled out in 2011. That one involved two baristas stationed on scooters per every square mile in seven large cities, and a kind of Frappuccino bombardment. The new service will presumably be a little more sophisticated than that.

[AP, CNBC]

Starbucks Will Roll Out Coffee Delivery Next Year