Starbucks NFTs sell out in 18 minutes as secondary price rises
Think NFTs are meh? All very 2022? It might be time to wake up and smell the coffee. So to speak, of course.
It’s been more than a year since NFT sales spiked — and then fell faster than a caffeine comedown — but Seattle-based coffee giant Starbucks released its first paid collection of NFTs today, selling out all 2,000 Siren- lasts just 18 minutes.
Since then, the secondary market has gone into overdrive, with one NFT trading at over $2,000 according to Nifty Gateway.
Starbucks dubbed the release the ‘Siren Collection’, with 2,000 NFTs on offer valued at $100 apiece with each dubbed ‘Journey Stamps’, the fruit of a project that began late last year.
The company first launched its NFT and Web3 push in December, when it opened up a new membership program called Starbucks Odyssey.
Expanding on its existing rewards program that offers customers benefits such as free drink upgrades, Odyssey promises to deliver new benefits and “immersive coffee experiences that [customers] cannot come anywhere else”.
Rewards offered can include anything from virtual classes to exclusive access to merchandise, or even a trip to a Starbucks coffee maker for higher membership levels. The only thing that seems to be missing? Free coffee.
In addition, purchasing an NFT gives members extra points that can be used to increase their level.
“We are leveraging Web3 technology to reward and connect with our members in new ways, such as offering collectables that can be owned by digital stamps, a new digital community and opening access to new benefits and immersive coffee experiences – both physical and digital, ” said Brady Brewer, Starbucks executive vice president and chief marketing officer, outlining the launch.
Starbucks Odyssey launch
For today’s launch, members of Starbucks Odyssey could purchase two stamps per person, and perhaps inevitably, some customers claimed to have problems accessing the site, allegedly due to traffic volumes according to Coindesk.
The NFTs that members received for completing Journeys are also already available in the Nifty Gateway secondary market, which was trading at an average of $442.55 late in the morning, although the price is softening a bit.
Previously, Starbucks had announced that NFTs would help it expand the concept of its well-known “third place” philosophy, and it is far from alone in issuing NFTs, with consumer brands such as Taco Bell, NikeNKE, Adidas and GameStopGME among those have launched their own collectibles.
In truth, Starbucks has been quite late to the game with its NFTs, although Starbucks enthusiasts and crypto fans were out in force, and according to Nifty Gateway, 1,170 people currently own an NFT from the new collection.
Starbucks’ reinvention is accelerating
The launch also comes as Starbucks under interim CEO and all-round coffee luminary Howard Schultz continues its Reinvention plan. Starbucks has introduced a “framework for accelerated revenue growth” over the next three years, underpinned by improved comparable store sales growth, increased store count growth and continued margin expansion.
From fiscal 2023 to fiscal 2025, Starbucks said on its latest investor call that it expects comparable store sales growth to be in the range of 7% to 9% annually, both globally and in the U.S., up from the previous range of 4% to 5%.
In China, Starbucks expects outsized comparable-store sales results in fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2024, and on Sept. 26 opened its 6,000th Chinese store. The company’s global store portfolio is expected to grow by approximately 7% net annually from fiscal 2023 to fiscal 2025.
This increase is mainly driven by accelerated growth throughout the US portfolio.
Globally, Starbucks expects to approach 45,000 stores by the end of 2025, and said it is on track to reach around 55,000 stores by 2030.
Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. check out my website.
