Starbucks Gets a Delivery Partner in China
Rumors have swirled that Starbucks would link up with Alibaba to deliver coffee across China. The deal is now official.
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.
Rumors have swirled for two days that Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) would link up with China’s tech giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NASDAQ: BABA) to deliver coffee across much of the world’s most populous nation. The deal is official.
The two companies announced:
Marking a significant milestone for the two companies, Starbucks and Alibaba [are] poised to enable a seamless Starbucks Experience through deepened partnership.
[in-text-ad]
Starbucks [will] collaborate across key businesses within the Alibaba ecosystem, including Ele.me, Hema, Tmall, Taobao and Alipay, to significantly elevate the Starbucks Experience for Chinese customers:
[The companied announced] plans to leverage Ele.me’s on-demand platform to pilot delivery services in Beijing and Shanghai in September 2018; delivery program to expand across 30 cities to more than 2,000 stores by end of 2018.
[nativounit]
What the press release and management from the two companies did not say is whether they know there will be a surge in demand for hand-delivered coffee. If not, the announcement is nothing more than an announcement, and the project will burn out down the road.
Companies rarely post the results of these joint ventures, unless they are wildly successful. Don’t look for that announcement anytime soon. The partnership is nothing more than an experiment for now.
[recirclink id=471676]
[wallst_email_signup]
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.
McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.
His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.
TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.
McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.
