Coffee wakes us up in the morning. Brings friends together, even become its own subculture and a billion-dollar business. Once thought of as a West-Coast indulgence, coffee brands have changed our taste in beverages, shifted our culture and succeeded commercially. Let’s learn what the pioneering coffee brand Starbucks can teach us about entrepreneurship:
Starbucks has done this by offering one of the most successful rewards programs of all time and introducing an ingenious mobile payment system with the Mobile Order and Pay feature in their app. As the name implies, this feature allows customers to order and pay within the Starbucks app, then pick up their drink in the store, bypassing the line completely.
This accounts for 25 percent of their total transactions and is expected to rise. In this way, they have smartly combined their rewards program, their branded app, and an exclusive mobile payment system — a pioneering move in the retail and restaurant industries. Insiders in the mobile payment industry note the correlation between rewards programs and mobile payments, and cite Starbucks as a clear leader in this arena.
