Starbucks Coffee coming to your smartphone

Starbucks is all set to make the coffee sipping experience more special, by allowing users to order and pay using mobile phones. The service would be first for India and Starbucks is expecting bumper response once the app is launched later in the year.
Sumi Ghosh, who took over as CEO from Avani Davda in January said, "You could soon just pick up your phone and pay for your order through your rewards card. We already have over 160,000 active My Starbucks Rewards programme users in the country.”

US-based Starbucks have witnessed 25 percent of all transactions happen over the Starbucks app. Users can locate nearby outlets, order and pay using the Starbucks card after which the coffee can be collected by the customer.

Starbucks who is confident of a strong response in India, “This is considered among its fastest roll-outs in international markets. We see no slowdown and are on track with our expectations for India."

Starbucks is also planning to evaluate newer markets, “As we grow, we will have to be creative in our approach. We are looking at that format today, how we go into a residential neighbourhood and get people attracted to our brand,” said Ghosh, who was previously based in Chicago, overseeing Starbucks’ Midwestern US region.

For consumer-facing companies such as Starbucks, India will be a critical market as it is expected to be the world’s youngest country by 2020 with 64 percent population in working age group.

"As a part of its India strategy, Starbucks recently rolled out a campaign that elicited how the consumer felt in a Starbucks store and which product suited that mood best. The campaign ran in April and attracted 110,000 people, who received two free customizations", Ghosh said.