Comments on: SBUX: More Ways to Play Starbucks Than Starbucks Has Lattes http://stockmarketbeat.com/blog1/2008/01/10/sbux-more-ways-to-play-starbucks-than-starbucks-has-lattes/ Our beat: The stock market. Our job: Beat it. Thu, 16 Oct 2008 06:45:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.1 By: WayneMulligan http://stockmarketbeat.com/blog1/2008/01/10/sbux-more-ways-to-play-starbucks-than-starbucks-has-lattes/#comment-53236 WayneMulligan Thu, 10 Jan 2008 20:15:42 +0000 http://stockmarketbeat.com/blog1/2008/01/10/sbux-more-ways-to-play-starbucks-than-starbucks-has-lattes/#comment-53236 I like your overall thesis and how you're thinking about the SBUX story but I think you're really discounting the McDonald's factor here. You make mention of the inconvenience of going to Dunkin D's for a cup of joe, but McDonald's is just as, if not more so when you consider drive-throughs, convenient as Starbucks. You also talk about the Starbucks "experience" - Schultz wrote a memo last year talking about how SBUX lost that experience a long time ago and has become nothing more than a higher-end fast-coffee chain. So I don't think any amount of analysis we do here can really predict what will happen with this company as competition heats up over the next couple of years. I like your overall thesis and how you’re thinking about the SBUX story but I think you’re really discounting the McDonald’s factor here. You make mention of the inconvenience of going to Dunkin D’s for a cup of joe, but McDonald’s is just as, if not more so when you consider drive-throughs, convenient as Starbucks.

You also talk about the Starbucks “experience” - Schultz wrote a memo last year talking about how SBUX lost that experience a long time ago and has become nothing more than a higher-end fast-coffee chain.

So I don’t think any amount of analysis we do here can really predict what will happen with this company as competition heats up over the next couple of years.

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