[2008.07.05] 星巴克：从头再来

Starbucks
星巴克

Grounds zero
从头来过　1

Jul 3rd 2008 | NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition

The troubled company wakes up and smells the coffee
麻烦缠身的星巴克幡然醒悟，着意提高咖啡品质

FOR years it seemed that American consumers’ demand for liquid fuel was price inelastic-whether it was to drive their cars or get their brains going in the morning. Yet $4 seems to have been the price at which demand becomes elastic, for both petrol and a frothy latte. As a result, baristas at Starbucks coffee shops around America are starting to get a taste of what it feels like to be a carworker in Detroit. On July 1st the coffee retailer, based in Seattle, said it would close a further 500 stores in America (in addition to the 100 closures it announced earlier this year), and reduce its workforce of roughly 172,000 by around 7%.

这么多年来，美国消费者对液体燃料的需求似乎是没有价格弹性的–不管这个燃料是用来驱动汽车，还是用来在早上刺激大脑。然而当价格涨到4美元，消费者的需求似乎终于出现了价格弹性，汽油如此，拿铁也如此。如此一来，美国境内各个星巴克的咖啡师都开始感受到了如底特律城的汽车工人的气息（译注2）。6月1日，总部位于西雅图的星巴克宣布将在美国进一步关闭500家门店（今年早些时候已经宣布关闭100家），并将目前的大约172,000名雇员裁员7%。

A remarkable 70% of the stores due to close were opened after 2005, which seems to confirm the comment made by Howard Schultz, when he returned to the helm of the company in January, that most of Starbucks’ wounds were self-inflicted. As it expanded at a breakneck pace, the company opened too many Starbucks in subprime locations. But the deteriorating American economy is doing further damage. As a premium-priced supplier, Starbucks is suffering from the same trading down that is sending shoppers rushing from Target to Wal-Mart. McDonald’s, it seems, has perfectly timed its decision to start selling coffee that is pleasant to drink.

这些将要关闭的门店中，有70%（这个比例相当惊人）是在2005年之后开的，这似乎印证了Howard Schultz的评论。今年1月，Howard Shultz重掌公司后表示，星巴克的大多数损伤纯粹是咎由自取。公司飞速扩张，在次级地区开设了太多的星巴克门店。而美国经济的恶化更是让它雪上加霜。星巴克提供的是”优质高价”的咖啡，现在面对的却是节衣缩食的顾客，这些人由于同样的理由纷纷从Target涌向Wal-Mart（译注3）。同时，麦当劳开始提供口味不错的咖啡，这个决定看起来倒是恰逢其时。

Shares in Starbucks are now trading at barely one-third of their peak value from two years ago. Yet, rather than being a sign of panic, the closures may be evidence that Mr Schultz means to return the company to its focus on quality, rather than growth. After closing all its American stores simultaneously for a brief retraining session a few months ago, there are plans for further improvements in the staff’s competence and demeanour, and in the cleanliness and comfort of its shops.

星巴克现在的股价只有它两年前最高值的1/3。然而，关闭门店的举措并非星巴克恐慌的征兆，反而可能证明了Schultz先生打算让公司重新专注于品质，而不是扩张。几个月前，他同时关闭美国的所有门店，做了一个简短的再培训，而未来的计划包括员工能力、仪态和门店整洁度、舒适度的进一步提升。

There are also innovations in the works, ranging from healthy smoothies, to a mysterious (and so far unnamed) Italian drink, to further automation. In March Starbucks bought the Coffee Equipment Company, a small outfit that produces a hugely expensive coffee-making machine called the Clover. It is now testing the machines in a handful of its American shops.

此外还有产品和操作的革新，包括推出健康的果露，一种神秘的意式饮料（目前还没有命名），以及操作的进一步自动化。今年5月，星巴克收购了Coffee Equipment公司，这家小公司生产一种叫Clover的极为昂贵的咖啡机。现在，星巴克正在美国一些门店测试这种机器。

Admittedly, there have been some complaints about the introduction of the milder ” Pike Place” filter-coffee blend. But on the firm’s popular new customer website, MyStarbucksIdea.com, the main concerns are about the quality of the food sold by Starbucks and, above all, its prices. Encouragingly for Mr Schultz, there are also many positive suggestions, from serving vegan food to introducing a loyalty card, which suggests that plenty of customers still care for Starbucks enough to give him a chance to win them back-recession or no recession.

不可否认，口味更淡的” Pike Place”滤纸式综合咖啡的引入招致了不少批评。不过在公司人气旺盛的新顾客网站”mystarbucksidea.com”上，消费者更关心的是星巴克店里食品的质量，还有最重要的，价格。让Schultz先生振奋的是，网站上也有许多正面的建议，如增加素的食品，如提供钟情卡（会员优惠卡），这些都表明，许多顾客依然在乎星巴克，乐于给他一个重获顾客芳心的机会–不管经济是否景气。

译注1：Generally “ground zero” is a noun phrase, the meaning of which does not fit here. Besides, when considered as a noun phrase, “ground zero” should not have the form of “grounds zero”. When I searched “grounds zero” in Google, I got only 2 results with the exact form as “grounds zero”, one is this same article from The Economist, the other is the name of a film shot in 2006. What seems coincident is that the film describes a barista’s experience when the espresso model he loves is replaced by an automatic one. （See reference in IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0918931/plotsummary）So I think maybe “grounds zero” here is a special use, in which “ground” is a verb, and I translate the phrase as “build the ground from the very beginning”, meaning Starbucks is doing the samething which it had done when the 1st Starbucks was open in Pike Place Market, 1912. To be honest, I’m very unsure about this.

译注2：Detroit, known as “the Automobile Capital of the World”, suffered workforce downsizing early this year.

译注3：Compared with that in Wal-Mart, commodities in Target are better, and, charged more.

译者：misser　http://www.ecocn.org/forum/viewthread.php?tid=12523&extra=&page=1