You want a Latte with that?

The local supermarket chain (one of three, but the dominant one) has opened up a small coffee shop in the corner of the store. This appears to be the coming thing, as other branches of this same chain also have coffee shops in them. This one is a little different; though not at all lavish, it does have some interesting touches, such as a fake fireplace going in the corner, and a couch and stuffed chairs nearby. They don't look all that comfortable -- I don't think that the staff from the local Starbucks will be flogging it down here to see what the competition is doing -- but still, its an interesting idea. I would bet that when the concept was pitched at the store's headquarters, it was sold as something that would make the store a destination, rather than simply the place that you came to get your peas and cheerios. They're trying to upscale the image -- or as much as you can when the high pitched beeping of the cash registers is clearly audible, partially because the little cove that holds the store doesn't have a ceiling -- the next thing you see is the ceiling of the store itself, twenty feet up and studded with wires and pipes. But they're trying.

I saw an article not too long ago about the effort that Starbucks is making to reinvigorate their franchise. Apparently there is some concern that they've saturated their market, and then some, what with a Starbucks about every mile in some places, and occasionally less than that. The chairman of the company said that he wanted to get away from the cookie-cutter impression, where they all looked, sounded, and smelled the same -- he wanted to get back to people actually grinding the beans there, and mixing the whipped cream personally, because he thought that those things were attractive to customers. Whats ironic about that is that he lead the drive to commoditize Starbucks, and he or his flunkies did away with the things that made Starbucks 109 in Des Moines, say, different from Starbucks 5003 in La Jolla. And now he wants it back -- individuality, but in a manner acceptable to the corporate mind.

I don't know a whole bunch about the industry thats behind these shenanigans, but I know about the concept of mass customization, and about making the customer feel like they're getting a one-off unique experience even when they're truly not. I have a general sense of the psychology that goes into it, and what they're trying to do. Wish I knew more, though -- not at the MBA level (from whose mostly dry tomes I learned most of what I know there), but at the storefront level. I'd love to know how it's really playing out in the trenches.