Why are Starbucks mooncakes so expensive?

"I hope that people will live forever, thousands of miles away from the beauty of the moon", a water melody song expresses the lovesickness of the Chinese civilization for thousands of years. The appearance of mooncakes is a good sustenance for people, hiding the lovesickness that cannot be reunited when they are wandering away, and hiding the blessings that words cannot carry. Sending mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival has become the best choice for visiting relatives and friends and reciprocating gifts.

However, with the development of market economy, all kinds of capital began to be injected. In order to make profits, countless businesses have rushed into the mooncake business. Many of these merchants treat their customers as fat sheep to be slaughtered. Some of them sell sky-high-priced mooncakes and last for three years after opening, while others sell shoddy products and make a profit and leave. I believe that in recent years, when it comes to coffee, the first thing that comes to mind is the Starbucks found in major shopping malls. And Starbucks did not miss the Mid-Autumn Festival.

This year Starbucks launched mooncake gift boxes, and we picked two of them. These two types of mooncakes cost 10 yuan per portion, with a unit price of 59, and 8 yuan per portion, with a unit price of 57. So what is the price of normal mooncakes? You can find that the mooncakes bought at Starbucks are not more expensive than one or two. Then some friends may say that Starbucks represents the fashion trend after all. Old pastry industries such as Wufangzhai and Daoxiangcun cannot capture the tastes that young people like, and it is normal for the prices to be low.

Is this really the case? When it comes to popularity and fashion, it seems that Starbucks is famous for its coffee drinks. So let's take a look at another old company, Yuanzu. I believe that when it comes to Yuanzu, no one doubts Yuanzu’s trendy position in the pastry industry. We can find that the price of a single mooncake at Yuanzu is between RMB 20 and RMB 30, while the price at Starbucks is twice that.

So why are Starbucks mooncakes so expensive?

There are three reasons for this. First, Starbucks does not make a living from moon cakes and pastries. This is just a peripheral product of his company. In other words, it's just a matter of "making a fortune" during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Therefore, on the premise of ensuring quality, raising prices, and leveraging one's own brand effect and large customer base, sales can naturally be booming.

The second is packaging costs. Starbucks has always been known for its exquisite products, and the mooncake gift box it launched is no exception. Taking the star hotel mooncake gift box as an example, we can find that its design and packaging cost is almost equal to the mooncake cost. As a large enterprise group, Starbucks will naturally have to spend a larger proportion of costs to enter the mooncake industry. Enterprises always aim to make profits, and the increase in costs will naturally bring about expensive unit prices.

Finally, it is caused by the current unhealthy social value guidance. Starbucks is just an example we gave today. From moon cakes to large drinks and catering, countless people spend several times the price in pursuit of the so-called brand effect. With the development of economy, people pay more and more attention to material life, and the mentality of comparison abounds. In this case, it is also a gift. You give Wufangzhai, I give Starbucks, you give one or two hundred, I give five or six hundred. The difference is obvious. As the saying goes, flies don't bite seamless eggs. If those merchants hadn't caught on to the psychology of our consumers, no matter how expensive they offered them, if no one was selling, they would naturally lower their prices.