Starbucks to stop selling newspapers

I was thinking that even if one person extra person came in to that coffee shop for a $5 coffee because there were newspapers, it would be a win for the coffee shop.

Probably not if they can repurpose the space to sell mugs and t-shirts.

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That’s a good question. You get 10 free articles a month… do you just not read that much there? Years ago I installed popup blockers that let me keep reading the times, but they seem to have fixed that. I haven’t tried to get around it in years. Maybe it got easier to hack.

Now if Starbucks had a newsletter…

And yet at Starbucks you can still get cold water.

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That can’t be the real reason. I would have thought that they’d consider the newspapers as loss-leaders. I would also believe it if they claimed that they were stopping for environmental reasons. But shrinkage?

I like your accuracy tic.

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Agree w @dfaris

That 2’ x 2’ news shelf was -at best- a breakeven retail fixture. Most likely a loss leader. The papers are there to enhance customer experience, and get people to stick around and buy more stuff. SB decided they wanted that snack money, so bye-bye newspaper.

The “shrinkage” issue may well be true, but it’s not driving this decision. To me, this reads as an attempt to get ahead of a backlash from the (probably shrinking) group of people who enjoy getting their paper at SB: Those no-good newspaper mooches are the reason we had to get rid of the NYT! Don’t blame us!

Basic CYA PR stuff, with a dash of blame-the-customer. Kinda lame, but whatever.

Big picture, just one more step toward SB becoming an upscale 7-11.

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Penny University in San Bernardino. Cafe Pergolisi and Bookshop Santa Cruz. Blue Unicorn, San Francisco. Them was the days.

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