It’s not been a great month for Starbucks. On May 1, the international coffee chain’s shares fell 15% to their lowest in two years as the industry experiences what current CEO Laxman Laxman Narasimhan calls "a highly challenged environment." Starbucks also reported its first quarterly sales decline since 2020, as well as lower-than-expected earnings and same-store sales growth.
Amid the early days of the pandemic, economic experts predicted that it would be a tough road to sustained profitability for coffee chains as many purchases were baked into customers' commutes; this became especially true once the number of people primarily working from home tripled from roughly 9 million to over 27 million.
