Hello Asean Hive Community
There were days when Starbucks was a hype here in Indonesia. However recently there are many anti USA and anti Israel products here, so anything related to them, definitely will get some boycott.
In big cities such as Jakarta, Starbucks are still exist but they do suffer a lot from these boycotts. You might see some reel or shorts saying Starbuck boycotts are dumb, useless, and many more... the fact is that it hits hard on their sale, especially on stores outside big cities.
So let me share my story in visiting a Starbuck outlet. I haven't got any opportunity to visit them for months regarding I am a very frugal person. I do not like paying an overpriced coffee. I do not say Starbuck is expensive, but the value they are offering is not on their coffee, more on their place.
There were a couple of reasons why I visited Starbuck that day. The first one was no other place. Everywhere were fully seated, and I had to do some work with my laptop. I could not use laptop in fancy restaurant, people would give me some EYE OF THE TIGER. I could not use it on cheap cafeteria too, because they were packed with people.
The second one was their new package... Ok now I become their ambassador, promoting their product huh?
Seriously it was a lot below my expectation. I thought it would hit me more than 60K rupiah to get a table there. It turned out there was a 45K package, the cheapest one, which is around 2.75 USD right now.
2.75 USD, I got a WIFI connection, a power surge and a table... that would be perfect and I did spend three hours there to finish some zoom meeting and a quotation. So it was worth more than my money.
This was the free bread I got, a cinnamon roll with some raisin on top. I do not like raisin, but that cinamon roll does taste very good. So in the end I could eat it all. Well this is me, ordering the cheapest package without paying the detail, knowing it is the bread I do not prefer. But I was very glad it tasted great, or maybe I had been too harsh on myself so a decent bread could taste great.
And this was my drink. A Tall Caffe Latte. Everything was for 2.75 USD
So here is my order. What do you think? Is it worth for the money, and the 3 hours I spend there for working later and the free charging for my laptop and smartphone?
I enjoyed working there that day
Again I remind all here. If you see some shorts and reels saying that the boycotts for the Starbucks are useless, let me tell you again and again. it is not, and they are really suffering from those boycotts.
The evidences are clear. They are creating packages from certain hour sale to product bundling to maintain their sales. They did not do this in past, even I recalled well their Caffe Latte alone was higher than the package I bought that day.
Their stores are empty, however it does not mean nobody dine in there. Look at my picture above, that time only 4 table which were seated. The rest were empty, which indicated that in the past those table were fully seated else why would they make that many tables arrangement?
Anyway I have no intention to disrespect my friends who are boycotting them. I am not Starbuck regular customers anyway, I drink or dine in there during certain condition, and mostly during work visits or travel. I see nothing wrong buying their product sometime, and by buying their product does not mean I am declaring I am a die hard Israel supporter.
There are people working there, and some of them are Moeslem too. I am buying there not to support Israel, let's not think that far and being too idealist. I want those workers to be able to work there, most of them are young people and they are still in their study in University. I want to help them too you know.
However it's up to you how to perceive this. You might disagree with me, but I know well I have a good intention, and it is just a coffee shop, not some War Zone.
Ok that's all for today, feel free to drop some comments yo!
Thank you for coming and reading my post. I live in Jakarta, Ex-Capital City of Indonesia. I used to live by making money online, that's why I like being here, on HIVE, and in #PIMP - (Paper In My Pocket) community.
