Outsmarted By Starbucks

Today I decided to treat myself with a chai from Starbucks. 

I went in and waited in the obnoxiously long line.

Seriously. How long does it take to decide between poppyseed or a multigrain bagel?

I get up to the front of the line and barista looks at me, anticipating my order.

I explain that I want a chai tea latte, made with skim milk.

She makes eye contact with me and asks, Grande?

For those readers who are not Starbucks frequent visitors, that is coffee shop talk for medium size.   

I stop and think for a second. My default size is tall (a small drink), and ordinarily the barista asks me "what size?" so I make the active choice to say 'tall.' There is no temptation, only habit.
However, she specifically asked me if I wanted a grande, so the idea was in my head. Now I wanted a grande. Before the frugal side of me could regain control, I felt myself nodding my head and smiling.

“Yes, grande sounds good.”

 That’s how the game is played. I used to be a register girl at a Cici’s Pizza. They would play the same game. 

Cici’s Pizza is an all-you-can-eat $4.99 buffet. Can’t get much better than that, all the food you want and for only five dollars? 

A lot of times people would come in so excited about the low prices, and then ask how we still managed to make a profit from our salad, pizza, pasta, and dessert buffet. It was my job to smile and shrug and chalk it up to the magic of the Cici’s Gods. 

In reality almost all of our profit came from the beverages.  

Beverages are profit traps for restaurants. It only costs a restaurant a few cents for a standard fountain drink, but what does a customer often pay? At Cici’s it was a $1.79.
That’s about $1.50 in profit every sale. Bring in a few hundred thirsty customers, and now it’s a few hundred dollars.
 Oh, but that’s not all.
 People who came to eat at Cici’s could get a clear water cup for free (clear cup because then we can yell at people who steal our precious coke. That was my favorite part), or they could pay $1.79 for a red drink cup.
OR if they wanted to only pay fifty cents extra, they could buy the FANCY SMANCY STYROFOAM TO GO CUP. It held thirty-two ounces of fountain drink goodness.
Let me tell you, 32 ounces is A LOT of drink. As a register girl, selling these cups were key to success. Regular drinks were profit traps, but these to go cups were gold. Styrofoam is dirt cheap and essentially these cups were pure profit.
Little known fact about me, I am crazy competitive. Once I was hired as a register girl, I was going to be the best register girl. This meant I would put on my winning smile, belt out that “Hi welcome to Cici’s,” and sell those to go cups without fail.  

Not to toot my own horn (Toot. Toot.), but I became awesome at selling to go cups. I developed tricks, like holding the cup right under the customer’s face as I asked them if they wanted to buy it. They saw it, they wanted it. 

Or I would stack the cups in pretty formations, they just looked so much happier and like a luxury item. 

I also started to stereotype customers depending on their likelihood to buy the cup, it isn’t exactly PC, but is surprisingly accurate.

•  Parents with children hardly ever bought to go cups, probably penny pinching. The few that did probably felt guilty because their three-year-old child tore down my carefully constructed cup display.

•   Elderly folk often turned down the upgrade, normally with an exaggerated, “OH babycakes, I can’t handle something that big.”

• Single men – almost always bought the cup. Probably were free from the controlling women in their life and decided to splurge a bit.

• Men were much more likely to upgrade than women and often if she did, she would assure me that it was for iced tea.

• If a group of friends came in and all paid separately the bandwagon effect almost always decided what would happen. If the first person bought a drink or a to go cup, almost everyone behind them would follow suit. The same unfortunately applied if the first person only took water, I knew immediately to throw in the towel. We are such followers.

• Teenage boys were my favorite to prey on, They often had mom and dad’s money and so were fine spending it. It also helped that as a sixteen year old girl I would often turn my flirt on and develop a good banter before proposing the inexpensive upgrade. 95% success rate.

 I should have gone into marketing. I’ve got this down. It worked too, I could read people and knew exactly what to say to get them to upgrade their beverage. I was easily the best register girl at selling Styrofoam cups (Toot. Toot.)

Standing at the Starbucks counter waiting for the barista to swipe my card for my now $4.15 beverage (Outrageously high for any drink. I’m on a mission to find a homemade chai recipe, any suggestions PLEASE send them my way!) , I realized that I had fallen prey to the EXACT mind game I used to play with the people who would come in for their buffet.

Somehow I had been stereotyped (what about me told her that I would buy a grande? That I was a college student? Short? White? Wearing cowboy boots?), and she took her shot, and in my moment of vulnerability, succeeded.

As soon as I walked away I realized this was against my better judgment. Simple marketing ploys had overcome my desire to be frugal. For a moment I resented that Starbucks barista, she had used her skills for evil and took my extra money and forced me extra calories. Then I realized that it was all part of the game, I once too used my skills for evil and pulled fifty cents out of many innocent fingers. It wasn't all the barista's fault. It was the system. It was my responsibility to be above the mind tricks.

Today I was conquered, but not next time, Starbucks. I will have ownership of my purchases and my chai. Even if you outsmarted me this time.