The world’s largest coffee chain just posted a significant jump in sales — by doing the exact opposite of what the techworld recommended. You may remember a few years back, Starbucks retooled its focus on frictionless interactions with heavy investments in mobile ordering and pick-up. The goal was to push customers in and out, coffees and snacks in hand, without so much as a name written on your cup. A printed bar code sticker replaced the Sharpie marker love notes and personal interactions. They removed tables and seating from locations and focused on quick, efficient, frictionless service. And it came to bite them in the wazzoo.
Fast forward to earnings reports at the end of October 2026, and the global tastemaker is reporting a 7.2% increase in same-store y-o-y sales in total, and a significant 7.8% jump in US sales. How did they do it? They put human emotion and experience back at the forefront of their business model.
Starbucks’ tempting turnaround came about because they added back tables and chairs; a critical component of in-store experience. They asked their baristas to lean into the tradition of handwritten names and messages on their cup orders. In essence, they’ve reformulated their approach towards human experience, and this is what we've been saying all along.
Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash
The better metric to measure is dwell time.
Many companies, from real estate and property management to restaurant and hospitality can easily succumb to the constant pressure to drive sales revenues and dollars per square foot in their floorplates. But as we know, optimizing the transaction over the individual becomes meaningless over time. For a company like Starbucks — and this translates to every one of your ratepayers and downtown shops — the focus needs to be human. The better metric to measure is dwell time. A brilliant colleague and collaborator of ours, Jaime Izurieta, founder of Storefront Mastery keyed us into an eye-opening KPI that often alludes corporate America: the goal is not to focus on merely same store sales, or rev per sq. foot — rather considering the human experience at the forefront. When you perceive your customers as merely “taking up space”, you’re doing it wrong. When you focus on increased dwell time, the dollars will follow. We’ve seen this in numerous businesses and the results are consistent.
Successful businesses focus on experience first — regardless of whether you’re selling pizza, serving up wings and beer over board games and Dungeons & Dragons, hucking axes with coworkers, meeting a mate for a coffee and a catch up, or teaming up with friends to “escape a room” — experience is everything. So if sales are down, don’t point a finger at the BID’s marketing efforts or perceived lack of foot traffic or parking that’s a block away. Take a look inward at your own business and ask how you can improve the experience.
Consider every available touchpoint you have, including facade and street-level perceptions, menus, coasters, napkins, table talkers and check presenters. Are you adequately telling your story? Consider how your staff interacts with customers. Are you inviting them to stay, enjoy and advocate? And are you tracking and listening to the feedback from your own customers? If not, you'll end up an out-of-business finger-pointer, when the answer is right in front of you. It's the people — and the time they spend in-store matters most. When you focus on human emotion and experience, it can lead to make-or-break revenues, in either direction. And that little tidbit comes directly from the largest company handing us our morning caffeine fixes, so forget the grain of salt. Perhaps a granule of sugar and removing the clock from behind the service area will help.
If you need help analyzing your brand experience, your visual identity and making sure your space, your place, and your experience are all consistent, inviting and driving increased sales — ask us. We know how to make that happen. Just ask Sam from Golden West.