Starbucks

Question 1: What are the barriers facing Starbucks as they try to “teach” people to change their consumption habits from tea and instant coffee?

There are several barriers facing Starbucks as they try to “teach” people to change their consumption habits from tea to coffee. Firstly, tea is one of the common beverages in China. According to the history, China peoples start to drink tea before four thousand years ago. In China, tea has become a unique cultural phenomenon. The Chinese view tea to be both medicinal and beneficial whereas coffee does not have the same value to the Chinese. Other than that, having a cup of tea after meal will help to digestion. When feel upset, Chinese also believe a cup of tea will help to quiet down the mind. Moreover, when a Chinese family have guess come to their house, the owner will always treat the guess a cup of tea and can enhance the friendship. But to the coffee, Chinese do not get the benefits of drinking coffee and believe coffee are does not have the same value compare with tea. It will become one of the barriers facing Starbucks as they try to “teach” Chinese to change their view towards the coffee. In addition to this, one has to take into consideration the vast area of china. China consists of 1.3 billion of peoples. Even china is keep improving and economic start to growth up, but china is still having largely rural areas and lots of lower income family. Other than that, they have less familiarity with coffee and don’t have as much money spend on the more expensive beverage. Therefore, it will be other barriers to the Starbucks who want try to “teach” people to change their consumption habits from tea. Lastly, the vast majority of the Chinese market who drink coffee are accustom to instant coffee. Having them change to brewed coffee could prove to be a long and arduous task.

In addition, increasing of competitor in beverage is also one of the barriers facing by Starbucks to change the people’s consumption habits...