Starbucks' New Coffee Products Criticized by Netizens for Over-Recycling Old Concepts! Coffee Product Development Should Focus More on Taste

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Starbucks China's Product Innovation Dilemma

As consumers increasingly crave new beverage flavors, tea and coffee brands worldwide are continuously developing special, reasonable, and fresh-tasting drinks to cope with ongoing market competition.

However, product development at Starbucks China (excluding Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan regions) seems remarkably laid-back, entering a state where new products are merely rehashed versions without changing either the sugar (soup) or the coffee (medicine), leading to netizen criticism:

In an era where freshness drives traffic, everyone is thinking about how to attract more consumers through new flavors. Starbucks China moves like a 2G signal—only starting to follow trends after other domestic tea/coffee brands have already completed their boom cycle and even begun to decline in popularity...

Flower-Flavored Coffee Products

Take flower-flavored coffee products as an example. Camellia-flavored products became popular in 2021, but Starbucks only introduced them in 2022. Then in 2023, when everyone began launching spring tea-coffee series, Starbucks was still insisting on their camellia latte...

Before the camellia latte launch, Starbucks had been persistently promoting cherry blossom series products from 2019-2021. Although several cherry blossom products were launched, their ingredient combinations were largely similar, with only differences in adding coffee before or after other ingredients... This year brought some innovation with the addition of light cream cheese, moving away from the cherry blossom-matcha combination~

Limited Season Offerings

Additionally, two limited seasons receive the most attention from Starbucks each year: New Year and Christmas. Every country retains one bestselling classic product during these two limited seasons while developing 1-2 different flavored varieties. However, Starbucks China continues to offer the same old options year after year: chestnut & peach, toffee & white mocha.

The development of other limited new products cannot escape the formula: flavored syrup + milk + espresso. Meanwhile, Starbucks in other regions is dedicated to introducing more new cold brew coffee combinations as hot weather approaches, such as grapefruit cold brew, apple peach cold brew, and so on.

Starbucks China continues to stick to its approach... From spring to summer, people's taste preferences gradually shift from rich and heavy to light and refreshing, yet Starbucks dutifully relaunches almond milk coffee products that were first introduced back in 2018... This has left many consumers and partners unable to bear watching!

Festival Seasonal Products

Beyond the lack of innovation in beverage flavors, the Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival seasons—most valued by Starbucks China—see their annual zongzi and mooncakes become major complaints among partners: "Can we switch suppliers and create some new flavors!! Same thing every year, every year they're just bad to eat... I don't even know how to convince customers to buy them!"

Looking at Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan regions, their mooncakes have flowing centers, and their zongzi-warabi cake combinations look incredibly appetizing! The small gifts and packaging are also very appealing. Compare this to the domestic version: the eternal bag, the eternal paper box—emphasizing multifunctionality..."

Looking Back and Forward

Looking back at these years, more and more brands have joined the market, causing Starbucks' once-dominant position to begin wavering. Although Starbucks is committed to providing service experiences, products are the key to attracting consumers.

While the brand may not want to enter the affordable coffee market, business operations cannot survive without the participation of young consumers. Simply changing flavors cannot attract new young customer bases—making product flavors correspond with seasons is the key innovation focus.

April 26th is approaching again! (I heard this year's Frappuccino mooncakes have reduced quantity without reducing price—changing from the original 10-pack to 8-pack, with flavors still largely unchanged... Meanwhile, the early purchase gifts have also been cancelled...)

I imagine the readers who've reached this point are already sitting impatiently...

Image source: Internet

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