The Seattle Times ran a second story on coffee house pricing today that used quotes from this blog. The story is titled Coffeehouse customers steamed about higher prices. The point that seems to be lost from all the feedback I’ve received is that I’m not in the industry and don’t understand why prices are going up. I’m just a customer.
We all have our pricing stick points. A business can increase prices to that level and we will not push back, but as soon as they do, we as consumers will push back. That push back might mean cutting back or walking away completely. Coffee is no different than other industries.
When a certain Seattle coffee house raised their espresso price to $2.71 (post-tax), I stopped going there. The $300 I probably would have spent there, was spent with cafes that kept their espresso price under $2.25 (post-tax). Fifty cents isn’t a lot of money, but when you consume as much espresso as I do, it adds up. 😉
