Starbucks in Japan

Nowadays, Starbucks is a very well-known brand all over the world. Normally, Starbucks is a joint venture partner of the stores outside the Untied States. To develop and expand their overseas market, Starbucks created a new subsidiary - Starbucks Coffee International (SCI) - to build the Starbucks brand name globally via licensees. In 1995, the U.S. Company of Starbucks started a joint venture between a Japanese company named Sazaby League. As today, Starbucks Japan has more than 900 stores all over the country and is the second largest brand coffee store in Japan. 

The company is choosing more expensive locations, which are often crowded and will attract more customers. Apart from domestic competitors like Doutor Coffee, Starbucks seems to have quite different pricing policy. While Doutor Coffee serves a wide variety of snacks, coffee and beverages for a low price, coffee prices of Starbucks are much higher. Such high prices are probably an effect of choosing quite expensive locations on the main streets of cities. Starbucks is still popular because people's dissimilarity.  Not all people are happy with the idea of spending the night in a karaoke pub and drinking beers, some of them think that the calm environment, non-smoking area and cozy lounge of Starbucks is a good way to relax themselves from their intense daily life.

Starbucks has a no smoking policy. This policy attracts many young people, especially women who don’t like people smoke inside other coffee shops in Japan. In Japan, quality is not a differentiator among the largest companies or brands. Therefore, Starbucks is rapidly embraced by Japanese with its remarkable customer service and creative products. Japanese got used to instant coffee. However, something that is fresh and tasty also attracts them to try something new. Starbucks helps Japanese to try the flavors by selling in stores and recommend people buy the instant coffee with the same flavor from the stores. 

To fulfill customers' expectations, Starbucks has to invent something special, something that will satisfy the Japanese hunger for variety. As a response, the company introduced localized products that were made only considering the Japanese market. The latest series that had been launched was 'Kyoto Matcha Latte' flavor, which has actually nothing to do with coffee but shows how the company is trying to reach the market. What's more, canned coffee was quite a big success in Japan where people considered that "time is money". Canned coffee can be sold in shop or a vending machine. Latest canned coffee - Starbucks doubleshot- can be served both cold and warm which is why it fits a higher number of consumers. The canned coffee is targeted not only to typical blue-collar workers, but also to core customers when it is served warm.

Considering all the facts, I think the success of Starbucks in Japan is localized their products to cater to the taste of Japanese. All cultural factors like smoking policy, fluctuation of economy in Japan and different tastes has an influence on the company's success. From the growing perspective, Starbucks flooded the market in Japan extremely fast and successful. However, too dependent on the U.S. suppliers may be risky on Starbucks Japan's long-term performance.