Why You’ve Never Visited Starbucks’ Website

It’s the same reason as to why you’ve never seen a Starbucks commercial on TV. For Starbucks, their reason for a lack of traditional advertising and website promotion is pretty straightforward- they don’t need it. Word-of-mouth has made Starbucks the #1 place to go for a quick coffee, and the company focuses on top-of-mind marketing strategies instead of promoting their website and making commercials. As we all know, Starbucks is everywhere. Paul Williams of Observer recalls that “CEO of Starbucks Howard Schultz always said, ‘our stores are our billboard’”. In addition, with its expansive menu and memorable options (like tall, grade, and venti titles for their drink sizes), Starbucks has successfully manifested its own demand rather than compete with other coffee shops. Their top-of-mind marketing strategy is reflected in their consistent branding, large volume of stores, and their genius mobile app rewards program.

Knowing this about their business strategy, it's easy to see how their website reflects this top-of-mind concept. The website home page of starbucks.com is simple and minimal in a stylistic sense and includes multiple calls to action.

starbucks.com website home page

It's also important to note that little effort is put into convincing the site visitor why their product is the best- the site's main function is to provide customers an additional way for them to place an online order. Digging deeper into the website, information about the company, careers, news, social impact, and customer service isn't even visible until the site visitor scrolls down to the bottom 10% of the home page. This shows that Starbucks assumes everyone already knows who they are (and they're right), and that people visit their site with the intent of purchasing their products. The header of the Starbucks website shows their company logo as well as embedded links to their menu page, rewards page, and gift card page. It also includes a “find a store” feature based on the visitor’s location and options to log in or create a Starbucks account. To compare, I visited the website of another major coffee chain in the US- dunkindonuts.com. The main features of Dunkin’ Donuts’ website were similar, however it was easy to tell that they put more effort into explaining their products, coffee, and brand in order for site visitors to choose Dunkin’ over another competitor. Through this difference, this shows Starbucks’ confidence as a leading company in the coffee market.

Based on their success, it appears as if Starbucks’ unique marketing tactics, high volume of brick-and-mortar stores, and utilization of their mobile app are the main reasons as to why they don’t feel the need to promote their website, and as a result many regular Starbucks customers have never visited their website before.