Shadowing Practice: The Economics behind Starbucks Like Business - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Okay, so you want to own a Starbucks.
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You walk in every morning, you hand over $6 for a latte, and somewhere in the back of your mind you think, whoever owns this place is printing money.
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The line never stops.
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The same faces show up every single day.
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And the coffee itself, the actual coffee, probably costs less than a dollar to make.
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You do that math quickly enough, and suddenly the idea of owning one of these seems like the smartest investment you've never made.
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But here's the thing nobody tells you at the front of the line.
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You cannot actually buy a Starbucks franchise.
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In the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and most of the world's wealthiest markets, Starbucks does not sell franchises.
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There is no deal you can sign, no check you can write, no application you can submit to become an independent Starbucks owner, the way you might with a Subway or a McDonald's.
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And yet the company operates more than 41,000 locations across 90 countries.
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It generated $37.2 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2025.
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Someone is clearly making money here.
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The question is who, and how the whole machine, actually works from the inside.
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To understand that, we need to follow the money, starting with a single cup of coffee.
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When Starbucks reports its numbers to investors, the revenue comes from three places.
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The first and largest is company-operated stores, locations the corporation owns and runs directly with its own employees.
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In fiscal year 2025, those stores brought in $30.7 billion, which is roughly 83 cents of every dollar Starbucks earns.
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The second source is licensed stores, which are locations run by partner companies inside airports, hotels, hospitals, and grocery stores.
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Those generated $4.3 billion.
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The third is what the company calls other revenue, primarily its global coffee alliance with Nestlé,
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through which Starbucks earns royalties on packaged coffee and ready-to-drink products sold in supermarkets around the world.
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That added another $2.1 billion.
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So coffee beverages, cold drinks, food items, and packaged goods are all revenue streams.
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But the loyalty ecosystem, the mobile app, the preloaded gift cards, the rewards points, is what keeps those revenue streams flowing reliably.
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It is not a marketing program, it is a financial system.
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More on that later.
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The critical thing to understand right now is this.
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The coffee is not the product, the experience is.
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And the experience is extraordinarily expensive to build and run.
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Take one drink, a 16-ounce flavored latte in a major American city.
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It retails for approximately $6.
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When you hand over that money, most people assume most of it is paying for the coffee inside the cup.
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That is not what is happening.
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The actual coffee beans in that drink cost roughly 25 cents.
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The milk costs about 21 cents.
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The flavoring syrup costs 23 cents.
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The cup, the lid, and the sleeve together cost around 20 cents.
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So the raw physical materials inside and around your latte add up to about 89 cents, less than 15% of what you paid.
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The other $5.11 is not profit, it is infrastructure.
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About $1.70 goes directly toward paying the barista who made your drink, along with a portion of their benefits.
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$1.20 goes toward the rent on the building where you are standing, and Starbucks pays premium rents because it only operates in premium locations.
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$0.36 goes to utilities, the commercial espresso machines running at high pressure all morning, the refrigeration units, the hot water systems, the air conditioning.
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$0.24 covers the gradual depreciation of all that equipment as it wears down over time.
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$0.11 covers taxes and administrative overhead.
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Add it all up and the fully loaded cost of making and selling, that one drink is roughly $4.50.
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The store keeps about $1.50 per cup as its operating contribution.
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On a percentage basis, that is a 25% margin at the unit level, Which sounds healthy until you see how many cups you need
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to sell just to cover the fixed costs of keeping the lights on.
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Because they are not paying for the ingredients.
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They are paying for a decision they do not have to make.
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Think about your morning routine.
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You wake up, you are already late, and the last thing you want to do is figure out where to get coffee.
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Starbucks removes that decision entirely.
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You already know the menu.
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You already know the prices.
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You already know exactly how your drink is going to taste.
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Whether you are in Seattle or London or Tokyo, the experience is identical.
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That consistency has enormous value to people who move quickly through their days.
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Beyond consistency, there is the status signal.
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Carrying a Starbucks cup communicates something.
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It says you have a job, it says you have a routine, it says you belong to a certain category of professional adult life.
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Behavioral economists call this the social value of consumption, and it is part of why people will wait in a 10-minute line and pay a premium,
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when a perfectly acceptable cup of drip coffee from the shop next door is available in 30 seconds for $2.50.
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And then there is the pricing structure itself.
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Starbucks offers three sizes, Tall, Grande, and Venti.
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In many markets, the Tall is priced at around $5.25.
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The Grande, the middle size, costs around $5.95.
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The Venti, the largest, costs around $6.25.
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Notice something.
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The jump from Grande to Venti is only $0.30.
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At that point, the biggest size feels almost free by comparison, so most people buy the largest option.
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This is called the decoy effect, and Starbucks runs it deliberately.
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The grande is not meant to be the most popular choice.
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It is meant to make the venti feel like a bargain.
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Now let us talk about where these stores actually sit, because location is not an accident.
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It is a formula.
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In car-dependent American and British suburban markets, Starbucks positions its stores on the the morning commute side of major roads.
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That sounds like a small detail.
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It is not.
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If your store is on the left side of the road as people drive toward work, customers have to make a U-turn to reach you on the way home.
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That friction loses sales.
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But on the morning commute side, you are simply on the way.
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You are the path of least resistance at the moment people most want coffee.
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The company targets locations where at least 25,000 to 30,000 cars pass the surrounding streets every day.
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It uses geographic software to map drive time and walk time ranges around each potential site.
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In dense urban areas like Manhattan or central London, the primary customer base lives or works within a 5-15 minute walk.
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In suburban areas, it is a 5-10 minute drive.
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That catchment area typically needs a median household income of $60,000 or more for the premium pricing to work.
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In urban centers, the stores cluster inside corporate office towers, near university campuses, in transportation terminals, and along busy retail corridors.
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And here is something that seems counterintuitive.
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Starbucks sometimes opens two stores within a few hundred feet of each other.
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Rather than cannibalizing sales, each location captures a distinct flow of foot traffic.
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Different sides of a street, different building entrances, different commuting patterns.
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The goal is to make it impossible for a competitor to find a gap in the coverage.
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Starbucks made a deliberate strategic decision a long time ago.
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In its core markets, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, the company does not want independent owners running its locations.
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The reason is control.
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When you sell a franchise, you hand operational authority to an independent business owner.
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That person has their own financial pressures, their own ideas, their own shortcuts.
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They might water down the milk to save money.
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They might skip the barista training program because it costs time.
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They might fail to maintain the espresso equipment calibration.
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And the moment one location delivers a bad experience, the customer does not blame the the franchisee.
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They blame Starbucks.
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By owning and operating its stores directly, the company can ensure that every water filter is replaced on the same schedule, every espresso shot is pulled at the same temperature,
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every seasonal menu launches on exactly the same day.
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When CEO Brian Nickel launched his Back to Starbucks turnaround plan, which included removing the surcharge for non-dairy milk and simplifying an overcomplicated menu,
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he could implement those changes across thousands of locations almost immediately.
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In a franchise system, you would have to negotiate those changes with hundreds of independent owners who all have different incentive structures.
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It would take years, or it would not happen at all.
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The corporate ownership model also allows Starbucks to offer employees something that a franchise network struggles to replicate, genuine benefits.
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Any partner, which is what the company calls its employees, who works an average of 20 hours per week, or more qualifies for full medical insurance,
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stock options, and complete tuition coverage for a bachelor's degree through Arizona State University.
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Starbucks says its total compensation package averages more than $30 per hour, when benefits are included.
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That is the kind of offer that requires the financial scale of a corporation behind it.
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At the end of the second quarter of fiscal year 2026, the company had 41,129 locations worldwide.
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Approximately 52% of those are company-operated.
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The other 48% are what the company calls licensed stores.
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A licensed store is not a franchise.
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The distinction matters.
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A licensed partner, typically a large established company, pays an upfront licensing fee to Starbucks,
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then funds the entire cost of building out the store to Starbucks' exact design specifications,
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then pays an ongoing royalty of approximately 6-8% of gross monthly sales back to the corporation.
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In return, the licensed partner gets to use the Starbucks name, receives its products and ingredients through supply chains controlled by Starbucks,
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and must comply with Starbucks' standards on everything from the equipment used to the color of the walls.
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HMS Host, the company that operates food and beverage concessions in airports across the United States and Europe,
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runs licensed Starbucks kiosks in terminals from Los Angeles to Heathrow.
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Marriott International runs licensed cafes inside its hotel lobbies.
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Target runs licensed counters in the front of many of its stores.
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In all of these cases, the host company bears all the capital costs and operational labor.
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Starbucks collects royalties and product sales without owning a single piece of furniture inside those locations.
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It is a low-risk, high-margin revenue stream layered on top of the core business.
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Here is what a single day looks like inside a company-operated store, because the daily rhythm is where profitability is either made or destroyed.
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The morning rush starts at 6.30 and peaks between 7 and 9.
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During this window, every operational decision is about throughput.
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Speed.
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The number of drinks completed per minute.
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On a strong morning, the average US.
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Starbucks location handles around 847 total transactions in a single day, and a significant portion of those come in this two-hour window.
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The baristas are not making artisan coffee during the morning rush.
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They are executing a precisely sequenced assembly process designed to minimize wait times.
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By 11 in the morning, the pace drops.
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This is the window where the store shifts toward food.
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Breakfast wraps, croissants, lunch sandwiches.
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Food items that can push a $4 average transaction to $9 or $10.
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In the afternoon, the traffic shifts again.
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Younger customers, more customized cold drinks, more mobile orders.
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By 7 in the evening, the store is managing closing procedures and machine maintenance, which is essential for keeping equipment functional.
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Skip the maintenance for a few weeks, and an espresso machine that costs $40,000 starts delivering inconsistent results.
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Volume is everything.
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The rent is the same whether the store serves 200 customers or 1,000.
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The utilities cost roughly the same.
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A large portion of labor is fixed to minimum staffing requirements.
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The store only wins when the number of transactions pushes past the break-even point fast enough, and then keeps going.
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That brings us to what is genuinely the most important expense in this business.
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The people making the coffee.
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Store operating expenses.
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The costs of running the physical stores, which are almost entirely labor, reached $17.06 billion in fiscal year 2025.
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That is 45.9% of the company's entire net revenue spent purely on keeping the stores operational.
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No other line item in the business comes close.
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Starbucks says its average hourly wage for store partners is $19 per hour.
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In high-cost markets like California and New York City, Local laws have pushed entry-level barista pay to $17 to $23 per hour depending on the city.
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When you factor in health insurance, stock options, retirement contributions, and the Arizona State University tuition program,
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the company's own figures suggest the total compensation package averages more than $30 per hour for eligible partners.
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And yet that is precisely the conflict point right now.
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More than 12,000 workers at approximately 700 stores across at least
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45 states have voted to unionize with Starbucks Workers United as of mid-2026.
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The union argues that starting wages in 43 states remain at $15.25 per hour,
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far short of what workers say they need to cover basic living costs in major urban markets.
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The union is pushing for a minimum floor of $17 per hour, guaranteed minimum staffing of three workers on the floor at all times,
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and more predictable scheduling so that baristas can consistently qualify for health benefits.
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Starbucks has disputed several of the union's characterizations of the current situation, but the underlying tension is real.
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The company spent $500 million in additional labor investments under the Back to Starbucks strategy to address chronic understaffing,
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a problem that was directly causing long wait times and customer dissatisfaction.
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labor costs reduce margin, understaffed stores lose customers.
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The company is trying to thread an extremely narrow needle.
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Now, for the most brilliant thing Starbucks has ever built, and it has nothing to do with coffee.
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The Starbucks Rewards Program, which had 34.6 million active members in the United States as early fiscal year 2025,
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is functionally a financial product.
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When you load money onto the Starbucks app or a Starbucks gift card, that money does not go directly to pay for coffee.
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It goes onto the company's balance sheet as what accountants call a stored value card liability,
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which is just a formal way of saying Starbucks is holding your cash until you decide to spend it.
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As of fiscal year 2024,
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customers had loaded approximately $1.87 billion onto Starbucks cards and app accounts across the United States and its international markets.
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That is nearly $2 billion sitting in Starbucks accounts, earning essentially no return for the customers who loaded it,
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but available for the company to deploy in its operations.
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It is, in practical terms, an interest-free loan from millions of individual customers to one of the largest retail corporations in the world.
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And then there is something even more remarkable.
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Not all of that money gets spent.
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Some customers load $50 onto a gift card, use $30 of it, and then forget the card exists.
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Others reload their app in a moment of enthusiasm during a a promotional event, and then barely touch the balance.
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When the historical likelihood of a customer ever using a specific portion of their remaining balance drops low enough,
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Starbucks is permitted to recognize those forgotten funds as what the company calls breakage revenue.
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In fiscal year 2024, Starbucks recognized $207.6 million in breakage revenue, $187.6 million from company-operated stores,
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and $20 million from licensed stores.
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That revenue required no ingredients, no labor, no rent, no utilities.
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It was simply money that customers loaded and never came back to collect, flowing directly to the company's bottom line.
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Beyond the breakage, the app dramatically reduces payment processing costs.
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Every time a customer swipes a credit card for a $5 drink, the payment processor takes a small percentage plus a flat fee per transaction.
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By encouraging customers to preload larger amounts, $25 or $50 at a time, Starbucks collapses multiple individual transactions into a single card load.
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It pays the processing fee once instead of 5 or 10 times.
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Across billions of transactions annually, that arithmetic adds up to tens of millions of dollars saved.
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Now, let us talk about what happens when things go wrong, because this business is not as stable as those long lines make it look.
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Start with the raw material Starbucks depends on, Arabica coffee beans.
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Starbucks buys roughly 3% of the world's entire annual coffee crop, sourcing from more than 400,000 farmers across 30 countries.
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The company operates 10 regional farmer support centers globally, and owns a 600-acre research farm called Hacienda Alsacia in Costa Rica,
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where agronomists develop disease-resistant coffee varieties.
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That infrastructure gives Starbucks deeper insight into supply conditions than almost any other buyer in the market.
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But it cannot control the weather.
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Brazil produces roughly a third of the world's Arabica supply.
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When drought hits Brazil, global coffee prices spike.
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When unexpected frost damages the crop as it has multiple times in recent years, prices can move violently in a matter of weeks.
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As of August 2025, the most active Arabica futures contract on the Intercontinental Exchange reached $3.84 per pound,
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near historic highs, partly due to climate conditions in producing countries and partly due to new American tariffs on Brazilian imports.
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Historically, Starbucks protected itself against this risk by locking in prices through fixed-price contracts,
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sometimes committing a billion dollars or more at a time to secure supply at known costs.
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But in recent years, the company dramatically reduced that hedging.
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By the end of fiscal year 2024, fixed-price purchase commitments had dropped below $200 million.
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The company shifted toward contracts, where the final price is determined later, based on market conditions at the time of delivery.
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That shift saved money when coffee prices were falling.
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It exposed the company to pain when coffee prices, as they did through 2024 and 2025, kept rising.
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The Fiscal Year 2025 Annual Report cited elevated coffee pricing as a meaningful driver of higher inventory costs
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and reduced operating cash flow.
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Labor instability compounds the commodity risk.
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The ongoing unionization movement, if it results in a national collective bargaining agreement with significantly higher wages
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and mandatory staffing minimums across all organized stores would add meaningfully to the already heavy labor cost structure.
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Starbucks has not settled a contract with Workers United, despite negotiations that began in early 2024.
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Every quarter without a resolution keeps that uncertainty alive.
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And then there is China, or more precisely, what China used to be.
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For years, Starbucks counted on China as its largest and fastest growing international market, with thousands of locations in major cities.
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But intense domestic competition from local chains like Luck and Coffee,
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combined with shifting consumer sentiment and a challenging macroeconomic environment, drove consistent underperformance.
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By fiscal year 2026, the company had classified its Chinese retail operations as held for sale
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and was in the process of restructuring how it operates in that market.
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A major strategic retreat from what was supposed to be its biggest growth engine outside of North America.
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So what does one store actually generate?
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Let us do the math.
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A healthy standard company-operated Starbucks in the United States generates approximately 1.78 million dollars in gross annual revenue.
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That sounds like a lot.
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Then the expenses start.
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Cost of goods, the coffee, milk, food, packaging, and all the supply chain logistics behind them.
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Runs about 31% of revenue.
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That is $551,800 gone before a single employee is paid.
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Store payroll, including wages and the benefits package, takes another 28.4%.
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That is $505,520.
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Rent at a prime location costs roughly $10,000 per month.
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That is $120,000 a year simply to occupy the space.
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Utilities, maintenance, equipment depreciation, local store marketing overhead.
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When you add those together, you spend another $158,000.
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What is left after all of that is approximately $444,680 in net operating profit at the store level.
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That is the number before corporate overhead, interest costs, and taxes are applied at the company level.
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Now here is the important comparison.
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Building a new Starbucks costs approximately $450,000 in capital expenditures.
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The construction build out, the espresso equipment, the fixtures and furniture, the technology systems.
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At $444,000 in annual operating profit, a well-performing store pays back its entire construction cost in roughly two years.
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That is an exceptional return on invested capital.
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It is the primary reason the company has spent decades building rather than franchising,
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Because the returns from direct ownership are significantly better than the royalty income from licensing would be.
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Two scenarios.
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Because that $444,000 number depends on everything going right.
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Optimistic.
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Coffee prices stabilize, the morning rush stays busy, the neighborhood keeps growing, and the store hits or exceeds average transaction volumes.
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Under those conditions, the math holds, the store generates close to its projected operating contribution, and over a 10-year lease,
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the corporate treasury collects something in the range of $4 million in net operating profit from a single location that cost $450,000 to build.
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That is genuinely excellent.
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Realistic, Arabica prices stay elevated, which pushes the cost of goods above 31% of revenue.
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The local labor market forces higher starting wages than the budgeted average.
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A competing cafe opens nearby and pulls 10% of morning customers.
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A slow season, like the extended sales decline
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that produced seven consecutive quarters of falling comparable store sales between early 2023 and late 2025,
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reduces annual revenue by 8 to 12%.
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Under those conditions, the operating contribution drops from $444,000 toward $200,000, or below.
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The payback period doubles.
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The store is still profitable, but far less so.
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The difference between a good year and a bad year at a single store can be more than $200,000.
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Multiply that across 18,000 US, locations, and you understand why a single percentage point change in comparable
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store sales moves the corporate earnings statement by hundreds of millions of dollars.
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The most direct path, if you are a large institutional operator, a hospital network, a major university, an airport concessionaire, a hotel group,
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is to apply for a licensed store agreement.
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Starbucks evaluates the foot traffic at your location, the operational capacity of your organization, and whether your existing business complements the Starbucks brand.
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If approved, you fund the entire build-out to Starbucks' specifications and pay a monthly royalty on every dollar of sales.
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You bear the costs.
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Starbucks takes the royalty and sells you all the ingredients.
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It is not a path for an individual wanting to open a neighborhood coffee shop.
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For everyone else, the most accessible form of ownership is buying shares of Starbucks stock on the NASDAQ under the ticker SBUX.
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When you own shares, you own a proportional claim on the company's earnings, its global store network, and its dividend payments,
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without managing a single employee or worrying about whether the espresso machine needs calibration.
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As of fiscal year 2025, the company returned $2.8 billion to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.
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The stock ownership is not as viscerally satisfying as the idea of owning the actual store.
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But it is real.
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For professionals, there is also the internal path.
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Starbucks has publicly stated its goal of filling 90% of leadership roles through internal promotions.
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A career that begins as a shift supervisor can, over years, lead to regional management and above.
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And for commercial real estate developers, there is an indirect play.
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Acquiring or developing drive-thru-ready properties in suburban markets, and securing Starbucks as a long-term corporate tenant.
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The company's credit quality makes it one of the most coveted anchor tenants in the retail real estate industry.
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The store's presence drives value for the entire surrounding property.
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The biggest lesson from Starbucks is not what it charges for coffee.
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It is why customers keep paying it.
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Coffee is the physical trigger.
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It is what gets you through the door at 7 in the morning.
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But what Starbucks actually sells is the feeling of a routine that works, a small, reliable pleasure in an otherwise unpredictable day.
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The brand has built an emotional architecture around a commodity, and that architecture creates pricing power that persists even when cheaper coffee is available on every corner.
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The loyalty program converts that emotional connection into financial capital, turning customer affection into nearly $2 billion afloat on the balance sheet.
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The corporate ownership model converts operational control into consistent quality across 41,000 locations.
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And the licensed store network converts the brand's equity into royalty income without the capital cost of direct ownership.
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Starbucks is not in the coffee business.
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It never was.
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It is in the habit business.
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And the biggest lesson it teaches is this.
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Build something people choose again and again, even when the cheaper option is right next door.
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And you have not just built a product.
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You have built a business that compounds on itself.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “The Economics behind Starbucks Like Business”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Starbucks, store, coffee, cost, location. This video has 314 sentences and 4067 words to shadow. The speech runs for 24:51. The speaker talks at a natural 164 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 80% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| royalty noun | /ˈɹɔɪəlti/ | The rank, status, power or authority of a monarch. |
| espresso noun | /ɛˈspɹɛsoʊ/ | A concentrated coffee beverage brewed by forcing hot water under high pressure through finely ground coffee. |
| barista noun | /bəˈɹis.tə/ | A person who prepares coffee in a coffee shop for customers. |
| venti adjective | /ˈvɛnti/ | Larger than grande, usually 20 ounces (~ 0.6 l). |
| ingredient noun | /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/ | One of the substances present in a mixture, especially food. |
| breakage noun | /ˈbɹeɪkɪd͡ʒ/ | The act of breaking. |
| latte noun | /ˈlɑ.teɪ/ | A drink of coffee made from espresso and steamed milk, generally topped with foam. |
| suburban adjective | /səˈbɜː(ɹ)bən/ | Relating to or characteristic of or situated on the outskirts of a city; of or relating to suburbia or the suburbs. |
| overhead noun | /ˈəʊvəˌhɛd/ | The expense of a business not directly assigned to goods or services provided. |
| calibration noun | /ˌkæl.ɪˈbɹeɪ.ʃən/ | The act of calibrating something. |
| depreciation noun | /dɪˌpɹiːʃɪˈeɪʃən/ | The state of being depreciated; disparagement. |
| elevate verb | /ˈɛləveɪt/ | To raise (something) to a higher position. |
| commute verb | /kəˈmjuːt/ | To exchange substantially; to abate but not abolish completely, a penalty, obligation, or payment in return for a great, single thing or an aggregate; to cash… |
| specification noun | An explicit set of requirements to be satisfied by a material, product, or service. | |
| surround verb | /səˈɹaʊnd/ | To encircle something or simultaneously extend in all directions. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| add up to verb | To have a particular effect in combination. | |
| build out verb | To develop or expand (a system, structure, project, etc.). | |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| hand over verb | To relinquish control or possession of something to someone. | |
| pay back verb | /peɪ bæk/ | To pay (a debt or the lender) so as to provide the entire amount of money owed. |
| push past verb | To rudely force one's way in front of another. | |
| show up verb | To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically. | |
| wake up verb | /ˌweɪk ˈʌp/ | To stop sleeping; to awake. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | you've never made · have pushed · have voted |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is licensed · is priced · is called |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | billion, which is · stores, which are · people who move |
Pronunciation to watch
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: calibration /ˌkæl.ɪˈbɹeɪ.ʃən/, depreciation /dɪˌpɹiːʃɪˈeɪʃən/, tuition /tjuːˈɪʃən/, negotiation /nɪˌɡəʊ.ʃiˈeɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: ingredient /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/, calibration /ˌkæl.ɪˈbɹeɪ.ʃən/, depreciation /dɪˌpɹiːʃɪˈeɪʃən/, commodity /kəˈmɑdəti/, consistency /kənˈsɪs.tən.si/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like royalty, espresso, barista.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.