Starting this month, Starbucks will be running a “Coffee Card” promotion. Buy two at-home coffee items, get the third one free. This promotion is for all company-operated Starbucks, and as I understand it, there will be future coffee cards for subsequent months through sometime in the fall (possibly November). So for example, a customer could buy two boxes of Verismo pods, and get the third one free. Each time you make a qualifying purchase, the friendly Starbucks barista will place a sticker on your coffee card. The at-home coffees can be Via Ready Brew, K-Cups, Verismo Pods, 1-pound whole bean coffee, and Starbucks Reserve Coffees. Purchasing a “scooped” half pound of coffee does not qualify. You can mix and match. A person could, hypothetically, purchase a pound of Veranda, a box of Verismo pods, and receive a pound of Pike Place Roast as the free coffee. In addition, when you receive your free third coffee, it cannot be a Reserve offering or a “scooped” half pound of coffee. You must both make your qualifying purchases, and pick up your coffee within the month of that coffee card. For example, if you have a June “Coffee Card” you must both purchase your coffee, and select your free coffee all within the month of June.
Enjoy! This looks like it will be a great promo!
29 Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Socialize
Is it just me or does it seem that SB is doing more promotions for customers to buy coffee for at home use and in the grocery stores? I know they still have in store promotions, but it seems like they are really pushing in home coffee sales!
I really like this promo, and what a great opportunity to try a Reserve! (Reserves don’t qualify for the free pound of coffee, but they do count as either the first or second purchase.)
I want to take advantage of this; hope they promote with in-store signage to remind me. I’ll probably try the whole-bean coffee as we grind coffee fresh at home & I use the bottled frappuccinos every day, especially when I can’t get to Starbucks for a frappuccino.
I really like this program! As I stated on Facebook, I’m in favor of any program that helps get our coffee into the homes of our customers. It’s nice to see the company shining more light on our origins: great coffee.
Yay for bringing the focus back on coffee! I like this!!
This is going to be a great promotion with all of the grocery stores running discounts and cheaper rates for the same products we sell in store. It will still help bring customers into our stores to purchase AHC and possible a beverage and/or food item, since they’re already there.
Does anyone know if this is going to happen in Canadian SB stores?
Dear Melody – thanks for letting us know about this. I will certainly take advantage of it!
As @BCav mentioned, this will be a good way to get folks who usually purchase AHC coffee in grocery stores (I admit, I’m one at times) to buy at Starbucks instead. I think it will be a hit.
@Kristina (and all) – On the Facebook side of this blog, it was mentioned that this promo was inspired by MyStarbucksIdea.com threads. Someone also mentioned that this is a great way to get rid of the coffee on the shelves, and Starbucks is transitioning to a new package design, and so it seems like they want to get rid of the current packaged coffee to make way for improved packaging.
I discovered one of these cards at the POS at a Sbux in suburban Chicago…not really obviously displayed and when I picked one up, had to ask about it. They told me they did not receive these little ‘cards’ until 6/8, and clearly it says the promo is from 6/1. I do like it, and it will be an easy win-win, but I do think Sbux should be capable of getting these promos out in an accurate and timely manner. What about people who bought coffee the first week of June? (when the promo was officially going on but the cards were not yet out?) Still, I like it!
Denise R your point is so well taken- I would hope that customers that purchased coffee before June 8 and from June 1 on would get credit so they can participate in this promo. Re SB doing these promos in a timely fashion- HA! I have had so many conversations with the SM at my local SB about promotions coming out in a timely fashion and it just seems perhaps SB has become so big that they have lost control of getting things out when they should?
Why do they fail so bad at promotion? What’s the point of having customer email addresses, messages in the iPhone app, a Facebook page, Twitter accounts, etc, if they’re not going to use them?
I can’t believe they started a promotion on June 1st and the first mention of it is June 10th on a non-corporate owned blog :/ Were it not for Melody……..
My daughter picked up one of the cards when she ordered her drink this past Sunday. I had ordered before her and didn’t even see them. The barista didn’t say anything about it when she saw me & my daughter then looking at the card while trying to figure out it’s purpose. Seems that might have been an opportunity to engage in conversation with a customer and sell some beans. The store wasn’t busy and it was a missed opportunity. The store was very empty of merchandise, beans, and even food items. No paninis or lunch items, only a few cookies and bread slices.
After first discovering this card at a store on Sat. (6/8), as I wrote about above, I asked the sm about them as I was waiting in a long line at my regular store on 6/10…..he said, yeah, they’re right on the counter. (he was on bar) When I got up to the POS, I actually had to look around for them and finally spotted a box of them sitting almost on the edge of the other side of the counter…away from the customers. I didn’t want one but I thought it was odd….maybe actually weird? that they weren’t in any way ‘promoting’ these. I can’t imagine why there would be a promo, which encourages coffee purchases at Sbux, and it comes out late and then is not even…where I’ve been, in any way ‘promoted’. I will have occasion to be in a different Sbux today so will see what their take on this is. Just strange, so far.
@Denise – On MSI, I read that most stores will get no more than 300 of the cards. I get the impression the purpose of the cards is partly to give moments to talk a customer who is already interested in whole bean, or might be – if a customer is standing at the whole bean wall, a barista could say, … hey we’ve got a great promo. At the register, a customer buying WB or Verismo pods could be approached with ‘just to let you know’ but the cards aren’t for the 90% of drink orders that are just ‘Caramel Frappuccino’ and more. That’s my guess.
I was disappointed yesterday at one downtown Seattle Starbucks. I still hadn’t picked one up – and I wanted to see one so I asked a register barista at a downtown Seattle Starbucks about it, and she really had no idea what I was talking about. She looked at me very confused and just said that their store didn’t have them. The Shift Supervisor was standing right behind her (back to us) and immediate whipped around grabbed them, and said, ‘here they are!’ and handed me. There’s one particular store where I’ve had a lot of experiences where I feel like the partners are friendly, the beverages are usually good (though more remakes than other stores!) but it’s really odd, being knowledgeable about promos or much of anything outside of marking a cup and saying hello just isn’t happening. It seems universal at this one particular store. This is the same store where a different partner had never heard of the Starbucks global month of service – and we were mid-way through April at that point.
@Melody: I’m glad you found these cards..I could’ve mailed you one of the ones I picked up on that first day! 6/8 (you could use it in one day…2# = 3) I still find it all very mysterious and when they’re really busy, I can see many stores not even showing these to someone buying beans. just weird.
I did not find this promotion visible at my local SB. Denise R thank you for finding these cards on that first day of June 8. I bet there is so much confusion from one store to another. There still remains the question how effectively is SB pushing promotions?
In Canada we will have this promotion but it will not start until June 24th when we launch Summer phase 2. I can’t wait, we sell a lot of coffee but this will be so fantastic for customers!
Any plans to integrate this with mystarbucksrewards? Seems like if it isn’t already on the card you use daily it’s going to be complicated. Loosing the sticker book etc. seems like just having it on the sbux card would be easier.
Travis
Went in for the free frap promotion (tried an iced vanilla coffee) and one pound of beans and the cashier mentioned this promotion, so I came home with three pounds of beans.
Buy them all at once and grind them at home! Won’t need to go back for awhile…
@Kara – That is awesome! Did you get a free Frappuccino loaded on your registered Starbucks card profile? I’ve heard that some people got that instead of the 1/2 an espresso beverage.
I think what happened in your case is just what Starbucks wants! Right now, they’re hoping to create coffee conversations, and probably want to clear out the old packaging in coffee, even if in a few circumstances, it’s a loss (though with the margin on coffee, I don’t think it ever is.)
Do you know if you were able to use mutiple cards during the month of June ?
Thanks
– Tom
I don’t find this offer compelling. I would need to buy more coffee in a month than I normally use, so it isn’t worthwhile for me.
So am I the only one left wondering how a “Monthly” promo ran for 20 days in June then got bitbucketed? What gives?
@SnowWhite – I dropped by the University Village Starbucks recently – picked up some more Verismo coffee pods for home. At the register, I asked about the “june coffee” card and asked if there was one for July. The regster barista had no idea what I was talking about. Right behind her, another barista turned around and said that Starbucks axed the coffee cards. It’s not clear why to me – the barista I spoke with seemed to think they worked too well, but I don’t know. Historically, at-home coffee is just a tiny percentage of Starbucks sales.
where do i get the “coffee card” from?
Hi LL! I’m on my phone – sorry short & sloppy. This coffee card promo has been discontinued. Sorry. There are no coffee cards because the promotion has ended.
Any update on the possible fall promotion?