Starbucks baristas may never learn the difference between “Halie,” “Haley,” and “Kaylie,” but their HQ knows how to increase summer foot traffic: limited edition drinks.
Starbucks sold a rainbow-colored gimmick—er, tie-dye frappuccino—from July 10 to July 15 (or until supplies ran out). Data from Placer.ai, a retail traffic platform, suggests the limited-time product remixed Starbucks's crowds in a big way:
- Visits to Starbucks stores climbed 3.9% from an average week during the run.
- Visits on Friday, July 12 increased 14.3% over the same date in 2018; visits on Saturday, July 13 increased 16%.
- Starbucks did not say how many individual drinks it sold, but the drinks did reportedly sell out at several locations.
Those dates weren’t random. Nothing special happened during the same period in 2018—and visits to Starbucks were 5.9% below the chain’s weekly average at that time.
The takeaway: Retailers typically peg limited-time products to a holiday or a global event. (Remember the eclipse blitz of summer 2017?) Turns out, this-week-only products are also viable when there’s nothing else going on.
+ While we’re here: Starbucks raised its annual guidance yesterday after beating Q3 earnings expectations.
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