Retail | Trends: Starbucks benefits from coffee’s climb up to the top the beverage food chain

Starbucks Macau expects to open its first store with Starbucks Reserve Coffee Experience Bar at MGM Cotai on January 29 amid its growing popularity in the region.

The “reserve bar” will offer its customers various premium coffees with a variety of brewing methods, and rare beans on offer.

Given the significant growth of coffee lovers in the territory, Norbert Tan, executive director of Coffee Concepts, which operates the Starbucks outlets in  Hong Kong and Macau, shared with the Times that the company, which is now celebrating its 15th anniversary in Macau, has a role to play in catering to the sophistication of local coffee drinkers.

Coffee Concepts operates a total of 13 Starbucks outlets in Macau, with one store currently under renovation at Galaxy Macau.

With the continued growth of the company in Macau, as well as the significant numbers of Chinese tourist arrivals, Tan said Starbucks Macau recorded a total of two million customers in 2016.

“It continues to grow. Think about the millions of tourists that visit Macau, yet we are [receiving] such strong local support. We have built up to 23 percent of our total transactions on […] Starbucks Rewards,” Tan said.

Technology had a vital part to play in this growth: customers can order and pay for their drinks prior to arriving in the store.

Norbert Tan and Ada Chao

Starbucks also focuses on reformulating drinks and enhancing its mobile app.

As there are still a few months to go until the end of the year, Tan hopes to exceed last year’s customer numbers in 2017, adding that Starbucks is still looking at opportunities to grow its brand in the region.

With Macau and Greater China’s strong “tea drinking” culture, Tan noted that Starbucks has brought a variety of global coffee origins to local consumers.

He is confident in the stores’ service offerings despite the rise of local cafes in Macau, claiming that the company differentiates itself by – among other measures – sourcing its quality Arabic beans from around the globe.

“We stand by the quality and the way that we also ethically source our coffee. That’s a big differentiator,” said Tan.

The director also added that Starbucks stores are designed based on the store’s location, citing special store designs in Wynn Palace and City of Dreams.

Tan said Starbucks has operated in Macau for 15 years and continually strives to understand the local community, catering its food programs to local preferences with a ‘twist of Starbucks.’

“We try and not only [meet] Greater China’s [needs] but also […] local needs,” said Tan.

more savvy customers

ADA CHAO, Starbucks partner and seven-year Store Manager at Starbucks Macau, told the Times that customer orders have gradually changed over the past few years. Beyond a daily caffeine fix, local consumers are now more aware of authentic coffee beans. “They now ask more about the origin, the beans and the methods of brewing coffee. So there’s a difference there in terms of how they consume coffee,” said Chao. “They pay more attention [to] the coffees that they drink.” With coffee’s rising acceptance among the masses, the store manager shared that the team is observing its clientele’s spending habits and patterns to create programs that “make sense” to customers.