Although Starbucks is the leader in the coffee market in many countries of the world, Australia is currently the leader This brand has proven that this job is not as easy as expected. For Starbucks, which enjoys being indispensable in every region it enters, this failure is quite surprising and remarkable.

So what makes Australia distinctive at the moment and Why isn’t Starbucks, which is breaking sales records around the world, turning heads on this continent?

In fact, Australia already had an established coffee culture.

II. After World War II, Greek and Italian immigrants brought espresso to Australia, and these people began to bring coffee drinking culture into their daily lives. Over time, in addition to espresso; flat white, ristretto, Australian macchiato, piccolo and affogato They began to turn to coffee like coffee and mainly consumed it.

Again, over time, cafes became places for socialization and Australians friendly, small coffee shops with close relationships with local baristas started to prefer it.

But Starbucks, which dove head first into the Australian coffee market, did not take this into account.

This coffee brand, which opened its first store in Sydney, Australia, in July 2000, quickly spread to all parts of the continent. In Australia, in 2008, There were 87 Starbucks stores.

The biggest mistake of this company, which has become very popular and has broken sales records over the years, is that the business model they adopted If he didn’t think he wouldn’t be able to adapt in another region.

For some reason Starbucks was sure it would be very popular with Australians. If you consider that McDonald’s has expanded into India and started a special menu for Indian consumers, this situation is the same It was too ambitious for Starbucks, which insisted on not changing its menu.

Instead of integrating into the Australian market step by step, Starbucks quickly opened multiple locations.

However, this situation; It has not given Australian consumers the opportunity to develop an interest in the Starbucks brand. In fact, Australians, who have encountered too many Starbucks in a short time, have not experienced the inaccessibility of this brand. On the contrary, this coffee company It has become a very easily accessible place for them.

In this case Starbucks, It suffered losses of about $105 million in its first seven years.. In 2007, Starbucks branches in Australia had to take out a large loan in the US. The branches in this region were hanging by a thread.

This coffee brand, which found the solution by closing its 61 stores in 2008, had a very difficult year for its activities. The branches closed in Australia also affected those in America, with 600 branches closed in this region. Of course, such a decline It was a huge shame for Starbucks.

As predicted, the Australian consumer; He didn’t care much about Starbucks’ massive departure from the coffee market.

Because Starbucks emerged with the American-style coffee culture, where coffee is essentially a commodity or product, and regardless of which part of the world it goes to, It continued along its own lines without making any changes to the menu.

For Australians, Starbucks’ menu was quite simple. Creamy, sugary, so to speak, luxurious drinks were not suitable for them. Australians, whose coffee culture took shape many years ago, enjoyed espresso-style coffee.

Moreover, in addition to the luxury coffees, Starbucks even offers more regular coffees, It sold at a much higher price than other coffee shops in Australia. As a result, people preferred to drink their coffee for less money than they were used to.

Moreover, the situation in Italy is completely different. The coffee culture of Italians is just like that of Australians and so are they He is looking for much cheaper coffee.

But Starbucks hasn’t given up in Australia yet.

Despite the branches closing in 2008, the company began reopening its stores after a brief hiatus. Currently Starbucks; In many parts of Australia, such as Melbourne, Sydney and the Gold Coast It has 39 different branches. In Turkey, this number will be 663 as of May 2023.

“So how do these stores work?” If you say, the answer is quite simple: Tourists. Starbucks, which is now trying to appeal to visitors to the region rather than Australian residents, continues to follow this logic in Australia.