Starbucks recently revamped all their whole bean coffee packaging. The look of the new packages is new and unique, and as I understand it, even the SKU numbers are new. (I could be wrong about new SKUs.) One side effect of the new packaging is that a significant MyStarbucksRewards perk has been turned off – this is a glitch in the registers. Customers no longer receive a free tall beverage with a purchase of a pound of whole bean coffee.
I learned about this glitch in the comment conversation of a previous thread here. Many thank yous to the partners who commented in that thread, and quickly figured out what the problem was.
In short, when a customer is buying a pound of whole bean, and paying with a registered Starbucks card at the green level or higher, the new packaging (specifically the SKU on the bag of coffee) prevents the customer from receiving a free tall beverage of their choice. The free beverage perk still works fine with the Reserve™ coffee, as well as the whole bean coffee in the older style packaging.
While I don’t think this is a huge issue, I do think that it is something that partners at the registers would want to know about. I assume that the glitch will be fixed soon. Nonetheless, I am writing this blog post because I know that there are a number of partners who read this site, and well, if I were a partner, I’d want to know this information.
This article is informational only. The conversation about a ‘free beverage with whole bean coffee purchase perk’ is found in this thread: Up for discussion: Free tall beverage with whole bean purchase.
The first photo shows the new style of coffee packaging. For the record, when I bought the coffee in the new packaging, the register barista at Fourth and Union Starbucks immediately saw the problem and said, “Let me fix that for you!” and then refunded the beverage to my card. That store really gets two thumbs up. And the second photo in this article is of a Reserve™ coffee, and as you can see, the free drink perk still works fine with that coffee.
I hope that I reach a few in-store partners who would want to know this information. And thank you to DeniseR and CD in the comments who found the problem and called it to my attention.
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Seems to me that Starbucks is having problems. Why can’t they get it right?
Thanks for the info. We don’t have many of the new packages yet so I was unaware of this issue. I will be sharing with partners at my store.
Always love your blog. 🙂
@jlove – Glad to help! Thank you!
To anyone: Im on my phone, sorry sloppy. I was downtown and I ran into a fave barista (the partner is from Olive Way). He was already fully aware that the new packaging is a problem. He theorized that Starbucks is switching to new qsr codes (those squares on the bag that can be read by your phone). He thought that scanners at sbux are going through some updating to be able to read those codes. It is possible the glitch is somewhere in that process?
@Melody — so it seems the knowledgeable Baristas know of the problem, but does anyone in the main office care?
There are certain times when a business changes things (like SKUs, barcode to QSR Code, POS software, packaging, etc.) and doing any one of these during the busiest and most critical profit time of the year indicates incompetence at high levels (sorry to be so blunt).
Glad I only have a token small amount of SBUX stock.
Stopping now, I feel a rant coming on 😉
@Dadcooks – At this point, I would assume that there must be people at the SSC who know of the problem. Two partners in the previous thread knew exactly what the problem was – And one partner who tweeted at me (from Ohio) had also already figured it out. And this blog post has been retweeted a couple of times – Maybe someone at the SSC has seen it? It would be bad business for them to drag their heels on fixing it, so probably something is happening. What I’m left wondering is how long have customers been missing free drinks? I don’t think there is anyway to know. Much to my surprise, not ever customer who can get free drink will. I saw this happen recently with a customer buying coffee, and declined a free beverage. Okay, and I can easily agree that this is a bad time of year to mess with POS software/packaging.
;-:)
I tend to think that SSC will move slow on this error but hopefully I am wrong. I just sort of feel there are too many elements that are making this problem harder to resolve when it can be easy to resolve.
I am on my ph, in a rush, but just got an email that this glitch is already resolved!
Terrific Melody and I assume this glitch is resolved at all stores! The power of your blog!!! Congrats Melody and all the people that made this happen so quickly.