i'm a starbucks barista in a ritsy area, and customers will straight up keep hundreds of dollars loaded on their starbucks app. i'm shocked every time, like, it's a power move.
I live in UK. Starbucks was trendy here for a few years and then people realised they were paying top money for shit coffee. The only people who go to Starbucks these days are those who don't know better.
There is no Starbucks within 70 miles of where I live. However, if I'd go to the closest one, I could choose among 8 Starbucks within walking distance.
Countries which are welcoming Star Bucks stores don't even know how they are running unregulated Banks in countries like India and gradually taking control 😵💫😵💫😵💫
Hmm they made a 10 minute video from this, classic TH-cam. I don't know if it was only in my country or not, but there was a bank which gave home loans, so to apply for a home loan, you had to pay some money, now their model was to earn money from these applications, and loan that money.
@UCRKY1Fq_ic9Vphqi43jMDLg A variety of opinions is healthy unless one loves oppression and is vehement regarding their predilect of totlitarianism and autocracy.
"McDonald's is a real estate company" "Starbucks is a bank" next video: "Pepsi sells smartphones" edit: why is everyone copying my comment this was my idea....
This video was like a magic trick. At first I was like “how can they be a bank that makes no sense.” Then I had kinda forgotten about the bank premise once we were deep into the history of Starbucks, and by the time he mentioned the Starbucks card I was thinking of this as more of a Company Man video. Like “oh cool so that concept helped save the company.” Then BOOM he hits us with the Largest Banks graph from earlier in the video and I was like “WOAH THEY’RE A FUCKING BANK HOLY SHIT”
@@eggs2627 he needs to explain why they did this. That’s the point of the channel, explain different business strategies, and companies and detail why and how they worked and will work
@@user-so3nj7rj1d Of course it is. Do you really think everyone in the world knows what Starbucks is all about? I didn't know about this card system they have for example since I'm not a customer. Without that vital piece of information and understanding the impact it had in their business practice I wouldn't have understood anything.
@@nahor88 I've seen mine spelled so many interesting ways, I've started looking forward to it as a special surprise 😉. Collumn, Caleb, Calvin, Colin, Colon, Kallem, etc but rarely Calum. Every order is an adventure!
I used to always keep at least $100 in my Starbucks "bank". Since the pandemic I never go to Starbucks anymore because I can no longer sit down at a table. I may be wrong but I'd guess that I am not the only Starbucks customer in the world who has stopped "banking"
Where I live, starbucks is regarded just like apple: a place where people drink coffee as a status symbol more than to have a nice cup of coffee. People here consider them both to be overpriced, too.
where i live starbucks is not seen as classy it's like mcdonalds here but where i live there are like a million indie coffee places so it's one of those bubbles
@@AliAhmed63708 Well, them and everyone else who makes phones. Apple has a well-earned reputation for being overpriced, and its products certainly are viewed as status symbols.
This Starbucks story is more of courage than genius. I am still thinking about the courage to ask people to pay for things they don't want now and convince them that they will need it tomorrow. The magic of brand loyalty and compound interest are on the same level
thats a huge stretch, it may work in the us but would never work here in sweden for an example where people are a lot more frugal. In fact starbucks tried to open up here but they failed against the local competition and had to leave.
Surely for all of Europe? On an average day wandering around Stockholm, I don’t go past any Starbucks and I never see a Starbucks cup in anyone’s hand.
i used to work in a starbucks in the UK and people here as a rule hate the starbucks loyalty card. the norm for other chain coffee shops is that the loyalty card is something you scan/swipe but you pay with cash/card. once you tell people you have to load money onto the card at starbucks to get the loyalty points, people become very skeptical and give up on the idea. it was only the truly die-hard starbucks regulars who used the app with any regularity. i feel like starbucks doesn't have enough of a market monopoly here (i believe costa is the most popular chain coffee store) for people to feel like loading up a card makes sense.
I once went to Starbucks with my youngest daughter. She is 25. I ordered a medium black coffee. It wasnt a problem to get that, they didnt question it, but they looked at me like I had three heads. When I said my name is Mrs Hildreth they looked at me like I had six heads lol.
Haha i had the same experience. I ordered coffee and the barista stared to list all sorts of "coffee" they sell. I again said "coffee black". He looked at me as if i was an alien.
@Eugene Krabs Someone who wants a coffee? There are 100 reasons why you couldn't have made the coffee at home? Maybe you already late? You didn't even intended to drink a coffee but maybe you have to wait and said to yourself, well lets get a coffee then... What a stupid reasoning is that?
You say there's no Starbucks franchise. But when I went to Milan in 2019, my friend who worked at the big non-franchise Starbucks told me that there were some small Starbucks franchises in the city. I even went to 2 to buy mugs and tumblers which were exclusive to those small franchise and a lot more expensive than what could be bought in the non-franchise Starbucks.
This ‘Starbucks card’ makes me realise how laundromats can make so good money - when I moved from my student housing, I still had unused money on the laundry company account. Guess lots of other people did the same as well.
I've had $86 on my mobile Starbucks card for the past 6 months. Just as good as cash especially in a crunch. People would keep $100s on there SB card. When it first launched the rewards program was incredible. Not so much anymore.
09:50 "an unregulated bank" -- yep, any outlet from which you buy gift certs or make use of a top-up account (amazon comes to mind) is doing exactly this. And the breakage definitely makes it worthwhile. Also, should the company go out of business, it would most likely take a class action lawsuit to get the money back, as card holders are not considered "creditors".
Interesting. Starbucks may not go out of business anytime soon, but Red Lobster did. So if I had let's say $100 in an app or a gift card, would I not be a creditor?? If I died with a balance on my Starbucks app, would it be part of my estate that I could leave to my heirs??
Great video. However, one correction. At 8:00, the more accurate comparison would be money in Starbucks app compared to large bank liabilities, not assets. Money people keep in the app is like deposits at a bank, which are the banks liabilities, not assets. (Bank assets are loans receivable)
As a barista at Starbucks, I just don’t understand how it’s so popular. A mom and pop shop has way better coffee (I love the natural taste of espresso, without all the added sugar), and a family shop has a way better atmosphere. It honestly hurts me what Starbucks has done to American coffee
The Starbucks "rewards" system is REALLY shifty. I started using it last year but noticed right away that the rewards are very meager per dollar spent, that they try to coax you into buying sets of products for a minor bonus, and as you explained in the video that they convince customers to invest millions of dollars with, again, only meager rewards. It makes me not want to visit them anymore.
@@daviddarcy1413 I heard about that, something about an established small business coffee culture, very neat It does ok here but is definitely out performed by Tim Hortons in regards to coffee, Starbucks is more where you go to get fancy sweet drinks which are absurdly overpriced
I think you missed saying a very important part: you cant just pay for your starbucks drink, you have to add a certain amount of money first, and then pay for your drink from the money in your account. That's how it's different than other online food & drink ordering
Yep. Indie Italian coffee shops and places like Cibo win hands down in Australia - because the coffee is 100% better. Starbucks failed to understand this and pulled out
You missed two things: 1. Starbucks's first international expansion was to Canada. Yeah Canada is its own country, its not just USA-North. 2. One of the big things that makes a bank is that they can loan more money out than they have on deposit. Thats right, if a bank has a hypothetical $100 on deposit, they can loan out $1,000 or so. So yeah Starbucks has a significant amount of deposits, but the only way they can make money on that is by investing it somewhere or loaning it to someone else.
Surface=level, you are right, but you miss one thing: The money Starbuck has "on deposit" is not going to be paid out in cash, but rather in food and drinks. Since we know that Starbucks is making an obscene amount of profit compared to what it costs to brew a cup of coffee, they are returning 1000 dollars in "value", while using only 10 pct or so in the raw materials needed to create that 'value'. Put another way, whereas a bank needs to take in a deposit first before they can loan on it and make a profit, Starbucks already made the profit as soon as a customer put money on a card or app.
@@shelbynamels973 Eh, your understanding of Starbucks's profit margin isn't correct. They're making something like 20% profits. (Raw materials is not all of the costs of serving your coffee, there is labor, facilities, transportation, and more.) But in any case you're not saying that they're a bank either. Lots of companies take money and exchange it for a product, Starbucks is just taking the money earlier than others, but they still have to provide the product. (Assuming that the card gets redeemed, and I'd gander a significant percentage of money on Starbucks cards get redeemed.)
@@NickCBax I'm re-posting again, it looks like me initial response hasn't been picked up. To paraphrase, our disagreement about Starbucks' profit is about the size, not the fact that there is one. Our quibble is about the inputs, and by how much they affect the company's bottom line. Many companies issue gift cards, but I imagine very few sit on a pile worth 1.5 billion that costs them 0 pct in interest. Also, a lot of gift cards - the dirty little secret in the industry - never get redeemed. That is the 'breakage' the video referred to. A quick online search put that figure at around 20 pct of all gift cards. That is money Starbucks gets to keep without ever providing any kind of value for in cash, food or drink.
@@shelbynamels973 I'd really like to know a bit more about the numbers. That $1.5B is a snapshot on a specific date. It is possible, and likely that a significant chunk of that will be spent in the month after that snapshot. (Starbucks has revenue of about $24.5b, so figure they do about 2 billion of revenue per month.) What would be more interesting to know is how the amount the unredeemed gift cards have changed over the years and quarters. I'm also curious if the restructure of their rewards program (allowing people to earn rewards without using a Starbucks card) has reduced the amount of unredeemed gift cards they have on their balance sheet. Also, that money isn't completely free. There is a fair bit of infrastructure around gift cards that Starbucks has to stand up. Including making the cards themselves. So while its a 0% loan, they do have costs from that, which I'm sure are covered by the breakage. A bank almost always engages in fractional banking. They take a deposit of $100, and then they can lend $1,000. That is one of the core fundamentals of being a bank. A bank could not make money if they took a deposit of $100 and could only lend $100 out. The key difference between a bank and Starbucks is that Starbucks cannot engage in fractional banking. There isn't a way for them to do so and it would be illegal if they tried to do so.
@@NickCBax I really have to wonder, are you such a stickler for excruciating detail and minutiae in all aspects of your life? Of course the 1.5 bil figure is a snapshot in time. It goes up, and it goes down. What matters is the trend line. If more and more people can be convinced that storing money on a card or a phone app is a good idea, than that amount will continue to trend up, as it did all the years before it reached 1.5 bil. To say the money is not completely free is more of a sign of getting lost in granular detail. Banks issuing credit cards have expenses associated with printing the physical cards and the cost of mailing them, but that cost is rolled into the business. I have yet to find a bank that will charge my account for the cost of printing and mailing a card. Also, banks mail out monthly statements, Starbucks doesn't, so more money saved. Whether Starbucks engages in fractional banking was never the point of discussion. In my post I tried to show that Starbucks does not have to wait to make a profit on the money it has 'on deposit' the way a bank does. Starbucks makes a profit on the money as soon as it is deposited, since it doesn't have to provide the product the money is supposed to pay for until much later, and in case of unredeemed cards, that time is never. So no need to keep nitpicking. Starbucks has been very successful since its inception. They will continuously try out new things, in menu items as well as operation. If an item or a way of doing things turns out to be profitable, they will continue with it. If it doesn't make them any money, they will quit doing it. Captive money storage seems to be working for them, I expect they will stick with it into the future.
I am not really a Starbucks customer. I wish you would’ve gone deeper explaining what benefits they give to their customers for using the card to pay. If you wanted to continue the bank analogy, this is essentially the interest their paying to borrow the money from their customers.
Some people ask me (barista) to load their card with cash and then use that card to pay for their drink, its a little confusing when you do it the first time lol
Totally. It is a bank as much as a fast food and drink place. When I was living in the US, my Gold card was right next to my debit card in my wallet. I had my real money, and then I had my “Starbucks money” - which of course could only be spent at Starbucks. My reward for doing this was that I could get free Starbucks merch, which I could in theory resell, thanks to eBay (and to Starbucks for always varying their cup designs). I even made “interest” on my “Starbucks savings”, by buying my Starbucks gift cards at a store that gave cash rewards, and then transferring the gift card value to my Gold card. It was a core part of the economic engine of my life. And when and if I go home I’ll probably go right back to it! (Sometimes I wonder if my baristas miss me because I went to the same ones every day!)
Previously on PolyMatter: "McDonalds is a real estate company" "Starbucks is a bank" In the next episode: "Hudson's Bay is a shopping mall" - Only my Canadian peers will get this lol
8:22 What's with the chart though? P*ypal less than 10 Billion St*rb^cks 1 Billion? Does PP not officially post that but you get that number estimate from somewhere?
Accounting guidelines say otherwise. That money would be booked as unearned revenue on their balance sheet which sits in a separate account so Starbucks would not be able to invest/borrow against it
@@mpcrazyscience7097 it goes down as unearned revenue because Starbucks hasn’t provided any good/service in exchange. It’s a liability until the gift card actually gets used. You can also think about it from an anti-money laundering standpoint. If they call it earned revenue the minute the gift card is sold then companies who are trying to launder money could just say that they’ve been selling gift cards to account for all the illegal cash. That’s why they have to wait until the gift card is used to consider it earned
You’re not alone. When we’d use Starbucks at service stations on drives, I’d just get a toasted sandwich and two snacks, the second snack being to offset the lack of drink. I always have to be careful around heat sources owing to a heart condition, but it’s easier for me to manage than it is for other people because I simply never liked any hot drinks in the first place.
Yeah, I'm so fucking confused about it. Somehow the x-axis is labeled as "# banks"? So it's like, there are few banks (including PayPal) with >$10B, more banks (including Starbucks) with
Not really, though. The money I put in the bank will potentially stay in that bank for years, or even decades. Money put on a starbucks card will most likely be used within a month or two, if it's ever used at all. Ok, sure, people "loan" starbucks money by virtue of their starbucks app. But, that's the company's revenue for next month. It's not like people are storing money there. They're just paying for their coffee in advance. If you start considering that "loan" as money to be invested, then next month your company will essentially have no revenue, because you've already spent your next month's paycheck, which causes other problems.
I live in Sweden where there is basically no Starbucks locations. There is though a Swedish coffee chain that is dominant. But it hasn't taken over local cafés. Local cafés exist along with the coffee chain.
"McDonald's is a real estate company"
"Starbucks is a bank"
Next: why harvard is a wealth management company
ok wheres the lie tho
There is no lie, just giving polymatter ideas hahaha
Harvard is a hedge fund and staffing agency, the pesky school part is scouting tallent.
how kfc is a tech company
@@Jdalio5 I believe it's the crowdfunding and PR wing of the company.
9:02 They even have a perfect name for that currency: Starbucks.
SBC - Starbucks Coin, called it.
They could easily create a cryptocurrency
Yes and peg themselves to Duncan Donuts 2:1.
@@alhdzsz28 Small Block Chevy?
their rewards are stars, so yes literally Star bucks
Polymatter: McDonald's is a landlord, Starbucks is a bank
Calling it, Spotify is a private military contractor
Google is a PMC.
@@bisonbro7 PMC
Starbucks offers free Spotify premium for its employees
@@name3256 I thought it was Coca-Cola!
Samsung has a military I heard
i'm a starbucks barista in a ritsy area, and customers will straight up keep hundreds of dollars loaded on their starbucks app. i'm shocked every time, like, it's a power move.
Really? Starbucks is looked down upon where I live. Like it's a tacky place for... average people or college students. The coffee is kinda bad.
@@Chironex_Fleckeri not "kinda" bad, it's over roasted garbage water.
I live in UK. Starbucks was trendy here for a few years and then people realised they were paying top money for shit coffee. The only people who go to Starbucks these days are those who don't know better.
@@Chironex_Fleckeri and a new....candle now and then?
Starbucks is the go-to for basic rich white girls. No wonder the cash flow for the company is insane.
"McDonald's is a real estate company"
"Starbucks is a bank"
"Chili's is a front for the Chinese mafia"
That’s funny but not too far off, apparently nearly all olive oil from Italy is controlled by the mafia
That would explain why my local chili’s burned down
@@empoleonmaster6709 You mean Genco's oil?
@@nzf-kx2qol1g12 Yes?
Not completely untrue
Now you can tell bank robbers “Sir, this is a Starbucks”
Yo guys check out this funny minecraft video: th-cam.com/video/MRgshlm_zOc/w-d-xo.html
@@hassanoffical181 nein!
@@hassanoffical181 *S i l e n c e BOT*
@@bork9570 I'm not a bot ☹️
@@Thestin yes
This channel makes me second guess all my knowledge. What next, McDonald’s is a real estate company? 😂
Just waiting for the r/whoosh
Hahaha, underrated comment
💀💀💀
Wondering if he's serious or kidding
@@russellfernandez57 he’s kidding
it aint a polymatter video without china being somewhere in it 5:24 🗿
I think it is the other way arpund since china tries to control the world
@@golfredomendoza7175 It isn't China without a Polymatter video somewhere in it?
it ain't a wendover production video without planes in it
@@tsegatesfaye7368 it ain't practical engineer without "Hi, I'm Graddy"
It aint an educational youtube channel without sponsers from brilliant.
"it's sorta liquid, not just because you can convert it to coffee.' -niiiiice
And it tastes really nutty too!!! (Mmmmm!!! Sewage water! Yummy!)
Small town friendliness is the last thing I think of, when thinking of the typical Starbucks barista.
Starbucks has much better customer service than the usual standard where I live.
There is no Starbucks within 70 miles of where I live. However, if I'd go to the closest one, I could choose among 8 Starbucks within walking distance.
Countries which are welcoming Star Bucks stores don't even know how they are running unregulated Banks in countries like India and gradually taking control 😵💫😵💫😵💫
next video: Target is Really an Adult Daycare
facts
You're not wrong
🤣🤣🤣
LOL!
Judging by their clientele? Yeah.
short answer: customers put lots of $ in their starbucks card before they even make a purchase, which is the "bank" dat starbucks is getting $ from
that’s what I guessed it would be
Hmm they made a 10 minute video from this, classic TH-cam.
I don't know if it was only in my country or not, but there was a bank which gave home loans, so to apply for a home loan, you had to pay some money, now their model was to earn money from these applications, and loan that money.
Tnx for the comment
thanks for the tl;dr
@@godfather7339 I kind of like it though cuz it gives out a lot of info.
"Starbucks is a bank"
"McDonald's is a real estate company"
next video: "KFC is in pc master race"
well MatPat already have a video on how KFC won the Console war
KFC is actually one of Asia's biggest music distributors, which is even weirder in my opinion
@@antoinemorin1816 blew my mind
@UCRKY1Fq_ic9Vphqi43jMDLg A variety of opinions is healthy unless one loves oppression and is vehement regarding their predilect of totlitarianism and autocracy.
And Apple is actually a cult while Facebook, serves a social experiment by our alien overlord horribly gone wrong
The genius of naming it “Star” “Bucks” now has a whole new meaning... future digital currency...
"Starbucks is a bank"
"McDonalds is a real estate company"
Next video:
"Burger King is a car company"
no sir, Apple is the Car Company.
That means that in some universe, Arby's is a roast beef company. Whoa...
Whoosh, Jimmy. Whoosh as fuck
Dominoes is tech company and kfc a gaming soon
@@jimmyzhao9748 对韭当割 人生几何
Me: Mom, I want to be a banker by working at an international bank
Mom: We have an international bank at home
International bank at home:
Haha not funny
maybe instead "home" the word "town" or "neighbourhood"/ Nachbarschaft would be better
@@vaiyaktikasolarbeam1906 it's the format
They do hold liquid assets...
"McDonald's is a real estate company"
"Starbucks is a bank"
next video: "Pepsi sells smartphones"
edit: why is everyone copying my comment this was my idea....
@@hammerth1421 *navy
@@hammerth1421
th-cam.com/video/nqCSxyudKHY/w-d-xo.html
It is time to bust this myth.
@@trevorboland4294 Oh, yeah. Languages...
pepsi is a military
Lol, I remember Pepsi selling sneakers in Asian market in early 2000...
This video was like a magic trick.
At first I was like “how can they be a bank that makes no sense.”
Then I had kinda forgotten about the bank premise once we were deep into the history of Starbucks, and by the time he mentioned the Starbucks card I was thinking of this as more of a Company Man video. Like “oh cool so that concept helped save the company.”
Then BOOM he hits us with the Largest Banks graph from earlier in the video and I was like “WOAH THEY’RE A FUCKING BANK HOLY SHIT”
"why starbucks is actually a bank" video starts at 7:02
Ik, dude could have just dismissed all the bullshit in the beginning
@@eggs2627 he needs to explain why they did this. That’s the point of the channel, explain different business strategies, and companies and detail why and how they worked and will work
Wish I saw this earlier im at 5:45 and too invested to skip now
Fw
this is seven minutes of a Starbucks history lesson and three minutes of why Starbucks is actually a bank
The context is important to understand their move fully.
pretty much, it was enjoyable tho
@@gab_gallard no, not at all
@@user-so3nj7rj1d Of course it is. Do you really think everyone in the world knows what Starbucks is all about? I didn't know about this card system they have for example since I'm not a customer. Without that vital piece of information and understanding the impact it had in their business practice I wouldn't have understood anything.
@@gab_gallard he could have explained it in 2 minutes or so.
next: why delta airlines is actually a pyramid scheme
Hol up, you are on to something
I can imagine Iilluminaughtii doing a video like that lol
Hold up
Didn’t we already know this? Lol
But how?
"McDonald's is a real estate company"
"Starbucks is a bank"
Next Video: “Apple is a grocery store”
He has one about apple being a gaming company
Apple is a slave owner lol
Apple is kinda financial company with their apple card 😂
“Amazon is a tropical forest”
@@AkunSayaYT apple has about $191 Billion in crash on
Hand
Next video on Wendover:
The logistics of Starbucks banks
Which would have a nice Segway to planes in some way
@Jack Attack Your face looks like a Dwight.. your words sounds like an Oscar, which are you?
I dunno, it might only be half as interesting
@@MadhavVij I think it will have a segue way into Segways
@@TorreFernand My bad! :D
Polymatter: Not everyone should code
Also Polymatter: Everyone should learn computer science at brilliant
Funny cause in that video he specifically mentioned how coding and computer science are different thinfs
@@JohnnyBooi he also mentioned coding is something you can learn in online courses, computer science needs a degree.
69th like
It’s amazing how an empire was made based on the principle of making bad coffee
It was based on buying 1 cup of coffee to go.
Based on sugar, not the first one at that
It’s not my go to. But I wouldn’t say it’s bad. There’s a lot of bad coffee out there lol
Me going to StarBucks
*”Yes I would like to withdraw 100 CoFFee BeAns PlEaSe”*
This better be a futurama reference
Yo guys check out this funny minecraft video: th-cam.com/video/MRgshlm_zOc/w-d-xo.html
“Personalise each cup with the customer’s name”
You didn’t have to misspell my name to personalise it...
they have to give it a human touch
Every American with an ethnic name can share in the annoyance of vendors doing this. Just give me a fucking ORDER NUMBER. It's accurate and efficient.
Sometimes they make up their own names for you.
@@nahor88 Yes, finally someone said it
@@nahor88 I've seen mine spelled so many interesting ways, I've started looking forward to it as a special surprise 😉. Collumn, Caleb, Calvin, Colin, Colon, Kallem, etc but rarely Calum. Every order is an adventure!
I used to always keep at least $100 in my Starbucks "bank". Since the pandemic I never go to Starbucks anymore because I can no longer sit down at a table.
I may be wrong but I'd guess that I am not the only Starbucks customer in the world who has stopped "banking"
why is like 7 minutes of this just the history of starbucks
Probably because the explanation of how it's a bank isn't actually that long-winded, and I thought the history was pretty valuable but ymmv
Because it's necessary
No, this video only heeded to be 4 minutes
Johnathan Meili because it is just an Ad. it resorted to click baiting.
must be minimum 10 mins to get ads revenue, i think
7 minutes until they actually talk about why Starbucks is a bank. This could have been a 3 minute video.
In conclusion: Starbucks learnt computer science by using Brilliant!
This is one of those "McDonald's is a not a restaurant" type videos I see. Can't wait to watch!!
Yo guys check out this funny minecraft video: th-cam.com/video/MRgshlm_zOc/w-d-xo.html
@@hassanoffical181 Can you not? Reporting all of these for spam.
McDonald’s is a bus station!
7-11 is a retail crack-cocaine dealership!
Souplantation is a comedy club!!
McDonald’s: real estate
Starbucks: bank
Google: beverage company
Google is an oil company :)
Google is an advertising company
@@keshavbhanu5788 The moment you realize Google is monopoly in everything...
@@primeroyal7434 Google has a monopoly on information 💁♂️
Facebook: alien's social experiment horribly gone wrong
Starts at 7:05 (if you don't want to waste your time)
Where I live, starbucks is regarded just like apple: a place where people drink coffee as a status symbol more than to have a nice cup of coffee. People here consider them both to be overpriced, too.
where i live starbucks is not seen as classy it's like mcdonalds here but where i live there are like a million indie coffee places so it's one of those bubbles
@@m.o.n.d.e.g.r.e.e.n You seem to live in a normal place where something that could be described as the fast food of coffee shops is considered as it.
Do you live in Poland? :D
Apple provides somehwat unparallel utlility tho.
@@AliAhmed63708 Well, them and everyone else who makes phones. Apple has a well-earned reputation for being overpriced, and its products certainly are viewed as status symbols.
Funnily enough a Starbucks was built in my area's old/empty Captial One bank
The one by my house is in and old fifth third bank too. They even use the big safe as seating.
One in my town went into an old PNC
Im going to put up a "Starbucks coming soon" sign in my neighborhood. Blow a realestate bubble.
This Starbucks story is more of courage than genius. I am still thinking about the courage to ask people to pay for things they don't want now and convince them that they will need it tomorrow. The magic of brand loyalty and compound interest are on the same level
Ye it’s crazy
Nope. The power of addiction and status.
"Starbucks is known everywhere as THE coffee shop."
Canada : That's not how you spell Tim Hortons.
american here. Tim Hortons is 10 times better than starbucks.
thats a huge stretch, it may work in the us but would never work here in sweden for an example where people are a lot more frugal. In fact starbucks tried to open up here but they failed against the local competition and had to leave.
“Starbucks is THE coffeeshop” from a dutch perspective is this quite wrong
Same goes for italy and a lot other countries that had a strong local cafe infrastructure prior to starbucks.
Also from an Australian perspective, Starbucks more or less failed here lol.
Surely for all of Europe? On an average day wandering around Stockholm, I don’t go past any Starbucks and I never see a Starbucks cup in anyone’s hand.
Starbucks is popular here in Alberta, Canada, but that's only because people have no taste. Or tastebuds when it comes to that.
Well it's THE coffee shop in America
This is genius. They’ll
Never lose money like that
*looking to buy sturbux stock*
Stonk!!
I lost $50 on Starbucks stock
*sturbux*
Careful. Their ultra liberal views might hurt themselves eventually
They were also facing another problem of having high level of sugar so u may wanna look into that before making any decision
While everyone is making fun of these video titles, I just wanna say it's really insightful and interesting. Pls make more of these!
First international was in Canada in 1987 in Vancouver Canada - not Japan.
i used to work in a starbucks in the UK and people here as a rule hate the starbucks loyalty card. the norm for other chain coffee shops is that the loyalty card is something you scan/swipe but you pay with cash/card. once you tell people you have to load money onto the card at starbucks to get the loyalty points, people become very skeptical and give up on the idea. it was only the truly die-hard starbucks regulars who used the app with any regularity. i feel like starbucks doesn't have enough of a market monopoly here (i believe costa is the most popular chain coffee store) for people to feel like loading up a card makes sense.
I once went to Starbucks with my youngest daughter. She is 25. I ordered a medium black coffee. It wasnt a problem to get that, they didnt question it, but they looked at me like I had three heads. When I said my name is Mrs Hildreth they looked at me like I had six heads lol.
yea because it's not a place that sells qualiy coffee, peoplego there for their sugar addicion and perceived status
Haha i had the same experience. I ordered coffee and the barista stared to list all sorts of "coffee" they sell. I again said "coffee black". He looked at me as if i was an alien.
@Eugene Krabs Someone who wants a coffee? There are 100 reasons why you couldn't have made the coffee at home? Maybe you already late? You didn't even intended to drink a coffee but maybe you have to wait and said to yourself, well lets get a coffee then...
What a stupid reasoning is that?
I’m not a financial mogul or anything, so watching this makes me that much prouder that I figured out Starbucks had become a bank back in 2015.
World: *literally dying into chaos*
Polymatter: sup, da cofe u drink is a bank
You say there's no Starbucks franchise. But when I went to Milan in 2019, my friend who worked at the big non-franchise Starbucks told me that there were some small Starbucks franchises in the city. I even went to 2 to buy mugs and tumblers which were exclusive to those small franchise and a lot more expensive than what could be bought in the non-franchise Starbucks.
I think there may be some typos at 1:25 but I might just not be understanding the bar graph
Fascinating. And one has to somehow admire the business acumen, at least over recent years.
"Starbucks is a bank"
"McDonalds is a real estate company"
"Apple is a car company"
Ford is a Scrap Metal Company
Apple's a music distributor.
China is a planet. Japan is a retirement home. USA is a Trump real estate
Apple is a marketing company
This ‘Starbucks card’ makes me realise how laundromats can make so good money - when I moved from my student housing, I still had unused money on the laundry company account. Guess lots of other people did the same as well.
6:56 If you want to get the the bank portion of video
All else is a venti version of company history
BTW, set at 1.25 speed to not fall asleep
Isn't it more like advanced sales? You're paying for coffee that you'll consume in the future in exchange for stars.
Me going in: "This will be funny"
Me coming out: "Well that's horrifying"
I am making a video about the same topic haha
lmao
Yo guys check out this funny minecraft video: th-cam.com/video/MRgshlm_zOc/w-d-xo.html
@@hassanoffical181
What are ya trying to do, the Great TH-cam community exploit? Up yours, spamma!
sounds like something I'd do
Average Starbucks drinker:🍤🤓
Average Tim’s enjoyer: 🍆😎
I've watched enough Polymatter videos to now correctly identify the transition to ads
By the way there are now 32000 stores just in case anyone wanted to know the actual current data.
I've had $86 on my mobile Starbucks card for the past 6 months.
Just as good as cash especially in a crunch.
People would keep $100s on there SB card.
When it first launched the rewards program was incredible.
Not so much anymore.
09:50 "an unregulated bank" -- yep, any outlet from which you buy gift certs or make use of a top-up account (amazon comes to mind) is doing exactly this. And the breakage definitely makes it worthwhile. Also, should the company go out of business, it would most likely take a class action lawsuit to get the money back, as card holders are not considered "creditors".
You can’t sue a non-existent company though
Interesting. Starbucks may not go out of business anytime soon, but Red Lobster did. So if I had let's say $100 in an app or a gift card, would I not be a creditor??
If I died with a balance on my Starbucks app, would it be part of my estate that I could leave to my heirs??
If you're reading this you have the potential to create great things.
Great video. However, one correction. At 8:00, the more accurate comparison would be money in Starbucks app compared to large bank liabilities, not assets. Money people keep in the app is like deposits at a bank, which are the banks liabilities, not assets. (Bank assets are loans receivable)
10:03 Nice transition to your sponsor....it was so smooth, that I didnt even notice it, at first. :)
9:03 - Starbucks could create a full fledged currency. So...starBUCKS!
😲
This is basically what Costco does with the executive member 2% reward
The way PolyMatter makes the transition from the content to the promotion is butter smooth!
haha, I don't know. If he says things like _"Starbucks grew thanks to ... the taste of its coffee.."_ people _will_ get suspicious.
xD The cappucino effect is your textbook example of correlation-causation fallacy
As a barista at Starbucks, I just don’t understand how it’s so popular. A mom and pop shop has way better coffee (I love the natural taste of espresso, without all the added sugar), and a family shop has a way better atmosphere. It honestly hurts me what Starbucks has done to American coffee
The Starbucks "rewards" system is REALLY shifty. I started using it last year but noticed right away that the rewards are very meager per dollar spent, that they try to coax you into buying sets of products for a minor bonus, and as you explained in the video that they convince customers to invest millions of dollars with, again, only meager rewards. It makes me not want to visit them anymore.
8:55 no, but they have to keep lots of coffee in case of mass caffeine withdrawals...
"Starbucks is known everywhere as THE coffee shop"
Not in Canada lol
Bombed in Australia 🇦🇺 We like great coffee from small individual outlets
@@daviddarcy1413 I heard about that, something about an established small business coffee culture, very neat
It does ok here but is definitely out performed by Tim Hortons in regards to coffee, Starbucks is more where you go to get fancy sweet drinks which are absurdly overpriced
It is where I am in Canada.
As a Torontonian going to Vancouver DT was surprising. How are there so few Timmie’s?
what does the bar length indicate when it's comparing starbucks to paypal and other banks?
Did the narrator purposely slowdown the audio to extend the video's runtime over 10min?
I think you missed saying a very important part: you cant just pay for your starbucks drink, you have to add a certain amount of money first, and then pay for your drink from the money in your account. That's how it's different than other online food & drink ordering
Me, an Australian: I don't even know who you are.
Yep. Indie Italian coffee shops and places like Cibo win hands down in Australia - because the coffee is 100% better. Starbucks failed to understand this and pulled out
@@MrDavidJMa Our small victory over the Yanks.
Don't worry, unless you are a gullible yuppy conformist, you aren't missing anything.
I understand why Australia doesn't have Starbucks; it's because their coffee sucks.
the only few store in Sydney survive is because international college student lol
You missed two things:
1. Starbucks's first international expansion was to Canada. Yeah Canada is its own country, its not just USA-North.
2. One of the big things that makes a bank is that they can loan more money out than they have on deposit. Thats right, if a bank has a hypothetical $100 on deposit, they can loan out $1,000 or so. So yeah Starbucks has a significant amount of deposits, but the only way they can make money on that is by investing it somewhere or loaning it to someone else.
Surface=level, you are right, but you miss one thing: The money Starbuck has "on deposit" is not going to be paid out in cash, but rather in food and drinks.
Since we know that Starbucks is making an obscene amount of profit compared to what it costs to brew a cup of coffee, they are returning 1000 dollars in "value", while using only 10 pct or so in the raw materials needed to create that 'value'.
Put another way, whereas a bank needs to take in a deposit first before they can loan on it and make a profit, Starbucks already made the profit as soon as a customer put money on a card or app.
@@shelbynamels973 Eh, your understanding of Starbucks's profit margin isn't correct. They're making something like 20% profits. (Raw materials is not all of the costs of serving your coffee, there is labor, facilities, transportation, and more.)
But in any case you're not saying that they're a bank either. Lots of companies take money and exchange it for a product, Starbucks is just taking the money earlier than others, but they still have to provide the product. (Assuming that the card gets redeemed, and I'd gander a significant percentage of money on Starbucks cards get redeemed.)
@@NickCBax I'm re-posting again, it looks like me initial response hasn't been picked up.
To paraphrase, our disagreement about Starbucks' profit is about the size, not the fact that there is one. Our quibble is about the inputs, and by how much they affect the company's bottom line.
Many companies issue gift cards, but I imagine very few sit on a pile worth 1.5 billion that costs them 0 pct in interest.
Also, a lot of gift cards - the dirty little secret in the industry - never get redeemed.
That is the 'breakage' the video referred to. A quick online search put that figure at around 20 pct of all gift cards. That is money Starbucks gets to keep without ever providing any kind of value for in cash, food or drink.
@@shelbynamels973
I'd really like to know a bit more about the numbers. That $1.5B is a snapshot on a specific date. It is possible, and likely that a significant chunk of that will be spent in the month after that snapshot. (Starbucks has revenue of about $24.5b, so figure they do about 2 billion of revenue per month.)
What would be more interesting to know is how the amount the unredeemed gift cards have changed over the years and quarters. I'm also curious if the restructure of their rewards program (allowing people to earn rewards without using a Starbucks card) has reduced the amount of unredeemed gift cards they have on their balance sheet.
Also, that money isn't completely free. There is a fair bit of infrastructure around gift cards that Starbucks has to stand up. Including making the cards themselves. So while its a 0% loan, they do have costs from that, which I'm sure are covered by the breakage.
A bank almost always engages in fractional banking. They take a deposit of $100, and then they can lend $1,000. That is one of the core fundamentals of being a bank. A bank could not make money if they took a deposit of $100 and could only lend $100 out.
The key difference between a bank and Starbucks is that Starbucks cannot engage in fractional banking. There isn't a way for them to do so and it would be illegal if they tried to do so.
@@NickCBax I really have to wonder, are you such a stickler for excruciating detail and minutiae in all aspects of your life?
Of course the 1.5 bil figure is a snapshot in time. It goes up, and it goes down. What matters is the trend line. If more and more people can be convinced that storing money on a card or a phone app is a good idea, than that amount will continue to trend up, as it did all the years before it reached 1.5 bil.
To say the money is not completely free is more of a sign of getting lost in granular detail. Banks issuing credit cards have expenses associated with printing the physical cards and the cost of mailing them, but that cost is rolled into the business. I have yet to find a bank that will charge my account for the cost of printing and mailing a card. Also, banks mail out monthly statements, Starbucks doesn't, so more money saved.
Whether Starbucks engages in fractional banking was never the point of discussion. In my post I tried to show that Starbucks does not have to wait to make a profit on the money it has 'on deposit' the way a bank does. Starbucks makes a profit on the money as soon as it is deposited, since it doesn't have to provide the product the money is supposed to pay for until much later, and in case of unredeemed cards, that time is never.
So no need to keep nitpicking. Starbucks has been very successful since its inception. They will continuously try out new things, in menu items as well as operation. If an item or a way of doing things turns out to be profitable, they will continue with it. If it doesn't make them any money, they will quit doing it.
Captive money storage seems to be working for them, I expect they will stick with it into the future.
I am not really a Starbucks customer. I wish you would’ve gone deeper explaining what benefits they give to their customers for using the card to pay. If you wanted to continue the bank analogy, this is essentially the interest their paying to borrow the money from their customers.
good analysis, yeah, I wanna know more about that too
Some people ask me (barista) to load their card with cash and then use that card to pay for their drink, its a little confusing when you do it the first time lol
Totally. It is a bank as much as a fast food and drink place. When I was living in the US, my Gold card was right next to my debit card in my wallet. I had my real money, and then I had my “Starbucks money” - which of course could only be spent at Starbucks. My reward for doing this was that I could get free Starbucks merch, which I could in theory resell, thanks to eBay (and to Starbucks for always varying their cup designs). I even made “interest” on my “Starbucks savings”, by buying my Starbucks gift cards at a store that gave cash rewards, and then transferring the gift card value to my Gold card. It was a core part of the economic engine of my life. And when and if I go home I’ll probably go right back to it! (Sometimes I wonder if my baristas miss me because I went to the same ones every day!)
Previously on PolyMatter:
"McDonalds is a real estate company"
"Starbucks is a bank"
In the next episode:
"Hudson's Bay is a shopping mall"
- Only my Canadian peers will get this lol
Poor Hudson's Bay. They are going the way of Sears.
After watching 8 minutes of this video.
Polymatter: It is legally not a bank.
Me: Why do you waste 8 mins of my time?
this dude talks about Starbucks like they invented the idea of a coffee shop
8:22 What's with the chart though? P*ypal less than 10 Billion St*rb^cks 1 Billion? Does PP not officially post that but you get that number estimate from somewhere?
The way he transitioned from the video to sponsored content, I ended up watching all of it.
Same thing here
Starbucks is a bank.
McDonald's is a landlord
Google is an ad agency
Whats next
Samsung is a pharmaceutical company
Arby's is a roast beef company.
Accounting guidelines say otherwise. That money would be booked as unearned revenue on their balance sheet which sits in a separate account so Starbucks would not be able to invest/borrow against it
Makes me wonder if the same applies to transport cards like London's Oyster
if the money can't be paid out, doesn't this already make it earned?
@@mpcrazyscience7097 it goes down as unearned revenue because Starbucks hasn’t provided any good/service in exchange. It’s a liability until the gift card actually gets used. You can also think about it from an anti-money laundering standpoint. If they call it earned revenue the minute the gift card is sold then companies who are trying to launder money could just say that they’ve been selling gift cards to account for all the illegal cash. That’s why they have to wait until the gift card is used to consider it earned
@@BrandonLee-lg1lg 1. They could deduct what they would spend on providing the product and book the rest as revenue.
2. Seems like they don't care.
Dude at 2:56 you said they expanded without franchising.
Can you explain in what way you said it i mean they are franchises or not?
Meanwhile, here I am as that one guy who doesn't drink coffee and has about as much use for a Starbucks gift card as I do for an empty food wrapper.
You’re not alone. When we’d use Starbucks at service stations on drives, I’d just get a toasted sandwich and two snacks, the second snack being to offset the lack of drink.
I always have to be careful around heat sources owing to a heart condition, but it’s easier for me to manage than it is for other people because I simply never liked any hot drinks in the first place.
Goes to Star-bucks
Me: “Can I apply for a car loan?”
"Starbucks is known everywhere as the coffee shop" Until you learn what coffee actually tastes like. ☕!=🍨🍦
Am I dum or doe's the graphic at 1:24 look wrong.
Yeah, I'm so fucking confused about it. Somehow the x-axis is labeled as "# banks"? So it's like, there are few banks (including PayPal) with >$10B, more banks (including Starbucks) with
Not really, though. The money I put in the bank will potentially stay in that bank for years, or even decades. Money put on a starbucks card will most likely be used within a month or two, if it's ever used at all. Ok, sure, people "loan" starbucks money by virtue of their starbucks app. But, that's the company's revenue for next month. It's not like people are storing money there. They're just paying for their coffee in advance. If you start considering that "loan" as money to be invested, then next month your company will essentially have no revenue, because you've already spent your next month's paycheck, which causes other problems.
Well put, thank you for sharing truth!
Thanks for adding actual captions to your video.
"Why Earth Is Actually A Star"
Skip to 7:10 to hear the answer.
I LOATHE the small talk policy of Starbucks. Just give me my coffee please, lady, I don't want to talk 🙄
I live in Sweden where there is basically no Starbucks locations. There is though a Swedish coffee chain that is dominant. But it hasn't taken over local cafés. Local cafés exist along with the coffee chain.
Love the video - dropped a like before even seeing because it's a Polymatter original.