Being an employee of Starbucks, I can tell you with 100% certainty that Starbucks is not closing "tons" of stores. For 2008, Starbucks is planning to open about 1100 new retail stores in the U.S. (down 34% from last year's growth rate), and shut down 100 underperforming stores (which isn't really all that many in the big scheme, if you think about how many stores there are).
They are focusing more on international growth this year than U.S. growth, and focusing more on the core values of the company.
Anyways, just wanted to clear that up based on Chelle's comment. Also, this is a good thing; the TMobile internet access SUCKED. Customers were constantly complaining of dropped connections and how much money they were paying for it (they were expensive). Look forward to this!
Being an employee of
Being an employee of Starbucks, I can tell you with 100% certainty that Starbucks is not closing "tons" of stores. For 2008, Starbucks is planning to open about 1100 new retail stores in the U.S. (down 34% from last year's growth rate), and shut down 100 underperforming stores (which isn't really all that many in the big scheme, if you think about how many stores there are).
They are focusing more on international growth this year than U.S. growth, and focusing more on the core values of the company.
Anyways, just wanted to clear that up based on Chelle's comment. Also, this is a good thing; the TMobile internet access SUCKED. Customers were constantly complaining of dropped connections and how much money they were paying for it (they were expensive). Look forward to this!