People get into routines. For many people, those routines involve Starbucks.
Now, for probably tens of thousands of Americans — and maybe a lot more —those routines are going to have to change.
The reason is that Starbucks announced Friday it’s going to stop selling something you’ve probably seen almost every time you’ve been to Starbucks.
No more newspapers.
Perhaps you think this won’t affect you. Maybe you get all of your news on the same device you’re reading this article on.
But there are 8,400 Starbucks cafes in the United States. Almost all of them have a display rack offering at least three newspapers for sale: The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and USA Today.
If each Starbucks store an average of just a few newspapers per day, that could easily add up to 40,000 or 50,000 copies — and with it, tens of thousands of loyal newspaper-reading customers. Now, they’re going to be empty-handed.
Interestingly, Starbucks says declining newspaper readership isn’t actually the reason for the change, which will start in September. Or at least, not the only reason.
Instead, it’s about what big retail chains euphemistically call “shrinkage,” a/k/a “theft.”
In short, it seems that a lot of people seem to have assumed that newspapers are complimentary at Starbucks.
So, they take them, spread them out on the table where they’re enjoying their drink or food, and then (if they’re even slightly conscientious), throw them in a recycling bin or leave them on a table for somebody else.
