Starbucks Positioning

In 1987, Schultz acquired Starbucks and began to expand it. From 1987 to 1992, Starbucks’ target market is was white people with higher incomes, who have had a sophisticated and delicate lives and decent jobs, in North America. They were coffee lover and they liked to linger over in a café where can relax and network with the others.
Schultz found this niche market when he visited Milan and then he copied the Italian coffee bar’s culture to Starbucks. He positioned Starbucks as a sort of highbrow “Third Place”, where provided the premium coffee was provided with amiable services in a romantic ambiance. Starbucks can could deliver the high value to its customers.
The products in Starbucks were not only the best quality coffee, but also providing customers the premium service and unique experience. Schultz made strict checks of each step of one cup of coffee, and all the coffee were purchased by the company. Schultz treated all the employees as “partners”, offered them stocks, provided them with the whole training program and enough benefits, even including for part-timers. In that case, all the baristas provided customers with superior service. Schultz designed the layout with the unique furniture, cozy coffee tables and chairs as well as romantic music. Under this atmosphere, people felt comfortable, relaxed and enjoyed their interacting interaction with the others. At that time, Starbucks did not have any advertisements, and costumers choose Starbucks because of its high quality. Starbucks sold its products exclusively through company-owned stores.
From 1992, Starbucks went public and expanded its market outside from North America to global, the target market were the people who lived in the large cities or small cities hub, who enjoyed lingering and relaxing in the café and they have who had college degrees, higher annual incomes. Its positioning was not changed, still a highbrow “Third Place”, a destination can discover new things and entertainment. However, in order to please Wall Street, Starbucks focused on fast and quick growth, so it changed customers’ profile gradually and its positioning was from a premium café to an ordinary food chain with lots of other items.
Schultz started to broaden Starbucks’ product mix, including coffee with varies flavors, coffee beverage, food items, seasonal offerings, bottle beverages and ice-cream for supermarkets and restaurants, music, books, and drive-through service.