Starbucks, monetary superpower • Hacker News Board

Re: Starbucks, monetary superpower

#101

Post by kgwgk » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 5:51 AM UTC

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #95

kgwgk wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starbucks doesn’t operate in Spain: https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2016/grupo-vips-takes-...

That link was from 2016. They do now! https://goo.gl/maps/oVQLjLTgbYzCdDPNA

From the link I sent: “Starbucks Spain S.L. currently operates 90 stores in Spain and 11 stores in Portugal and plans to open 12 new stores and undertake integral renewal of 10 existing stores in Spain in 2016.”

The point is that “Starbucks Spain S.L.” is completely unrelated to “Starbucks Coffee Company” apart from licensing the brand from them since 2001 (I think it was a 50/50 joint venture until 2009 and later Starbucks had a non-controlling stake in 2013-2016).

Re: Starbucks, monetary superpower

#102

Post by Scoundreller » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 5:57 AM UTC

cryptoz wrote: post #7

jahbrewski wrote: post #2

Not so sure it's due to "coffee addicts" so much as the fact that Starbucks gift cards became the perfect, generic, gift. How many times have you been on your way to X, needed to bring a gift, and just run into Walgreens?

Anecdotally, I've spent maybe ~$5,000 at starbucks in my life. I used a gift card for ~$25 of that and I have never given one as a gift. For me, it is the predictable atmosphere, the AC, the WiFi, the coffee itself, the hours of operation, and the location convenience that draws my money, not the gift cards. I would be surprised to learn I'm in the minority there, as I figured I was a common starbucks demographic / c…

Their washrooms are usually better than most.

And they’re the only chain restaurant/café whose employees don’t appear clinically depressed at every location.

I hope it’s because they’re actually happy.

Re: Starbucks, monetary superpower

#103

Post by Scoundreller » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 6:00 AM UTC

Canadien income tax law lets you give 2 tax-free gifts of up to $500 value. Can’t be cash.

So, smart employers will celebrate the new year and some other random holiday with $500 in gift cards.

Re: Starbucks, monetary superpower

#104

Post by seanmcdirmid » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 6:43 AM UTC

nlawalker wrote: post #23

One use of Starbucks gift cards not mentioned in the article: cashing out foreign currency. "When you’re leaving a foreign country and still have some of the local currency, take it to a Starbucks and load it onto a gift card. You can use the card later in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Mexico, and the Republic of Ireland." https://lifehacker.com/put-leftover-foreign-currency-on-a-st...

That will not work between China and anywhere else.

Re: Starbucks, monetary superpower

#105

Post by paganel » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 6:48 AM UTC

burtonator wrote: post #65

pweezy wrote: post #50

I've always thought that the main reason for Starbucks to push their card and reward program is to save on per-transaction credit card fees. By my understanding, in the US, typical merchant fees to accept a card are a flat $0.20-$0.30 transaction fee, plus 2-3% of the total dollar amount. The article mentions the interchange fee (the 2-3%), but for small purchases the transaction fee is more significant. I assume the…

This is a great example of a HUGE competitive advantage Starbucks has over regular merchants that's very unfair. Smaller merchants don't get the scale advantages here...

To be honest some of those smaller merchants can also make better coffee than Starbucks, and as such they can ask for slightly higher prices for said better coffee without their customers complaining.

Re: Starbucks, monetary superpower

#106

Post by seanmcdirmid » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 6:51 AM UTC

paganel wrote: post #105

burtonator wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great example of a HUGE competitive advantage Starbucks has over regular merchants that's very unfair. Smaller merchants don't get the scale advantages here...

To be honest some of those smaller merchants can also make better coffee than Starbucks, and as such they can ask for slightly higher prices for said better coffee without their customers complaining.

No one goes to Starbucks for the high quality of their coffee. They go for convenience, maybe atmosphere (a safe comfortable place to hang for awhile), and such. But if you want great coffee, that is a trade off that doesn’t favor Starbucks (like a burger conesuire at McDonald’s).

Re: Starbucks, monetary superpower

#107

Post by akhilcacharya » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 6:59 AM UTC

mbesto wrote: post #91

Diederich wrote: post #30

15 or so years ago, my manager at WalMart Stores Information Systems Division was previously a programmer on one of the many finance related teams. Specifically, she worked with gift cards, and one time I asked her how different state laws affected how much money WalMart could recover from those cards. She was delighted to elaborate! I don't recall the particulars of the answer, but it was eye-opening. She said that…

> It was eye opening to consider how legally complex many such 'simple' things, like gift cards, are when implemented on a wide scale. To the armchair HN community who ask "why does it take 1k engineers to run ". Here is your answer. Note - to be fair, yes many of these team are indeed bloated and work on projects that are a result of NIH syndrome, where "buy vs build" decisions just automatically default to "build".…

> Ask anyone at Amazon if they enjoy working with the code on their custom internal ERP system and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Can you elaborate?

Re: Starbucks, monetary superpower

#108

Post by akhilcacharya » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:04 AM UTC

eswat wrote: post #89

maurimo wrote: post #31

I keep wondering why people buy Amazon/Netflix Gift cards. Great, you converted 50$ into 50$ that can only be used on Amazon, and people may end up not using at all. This is also financing with negative interest rate.

These days I fund my Netflix account using digital gift cards purchased through PayPal's eBay store, since they frequently sell them at a 15% discount. If it wasn’t for that I would just pay Netflix directly.

...how exactly are they selling $1 for 85c?

Re: Starbucks, monetary superpower

#109

Post by AndrewKemendo » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:23 AM UTC

Diederich wrote: post #30

15 or so years ago, my manager at WalMart Stores Information Systems Division was previously a programmer on one of the many finance related teams. Specifically, she worked with gift cards, and one time I asked her how different state laws affected how much money WalMart could recover from those cards. She was delighted to elaborate! I don't recall the particulars of the answer, but it was eye-opening. She said that…

This is exactly how I answer the folks from the crypto community that make a serious run at the argument that crypto could be a feasible alternative currency.

Things like gift cards are, for all intents and purposes currencies, minted by non-governmental organizations with dollar-parity and limited transferability - and even with those constraints it's incredibly difficult to actually play nicely with Federal/State/Local laws.

If there's one thing governments have ZERO tolerance on it's messing with currencies/money.

Re: Starbucks, monetary superpower

#110

Post by ic4l » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:46 AM UTC

Back in 2012 I found an exploit [1] that let you fabricate card balances. They fixed it 2012, but in 2015 another person found the same issue [2].

I have no idea why they would not be using transactions, and make the same mistake twice. It really does make me wonder how much FAKE money is inside of that BILLION DOLLAR pot.

I also found similar issues in 2017 for their Thailand division. But this is at least understandable as Thailand operates its own Gift Card system.

[1] https://chadscira.com/post/556999d91cb00914380006ee/Re-Starb... [2] https://sakurity.com/blog/2015/05/21/starbucks.html