Starbucks claims racial bias training caused sales decline
Starbucks sales took a hit after the coffee chain closed its door in May for racial bias training.
The Associated Press reported Thursday, that closing Starbucks doors for one day impacted comparable-store sales by lowering them less than half a percent.
Starbucks reported that total sales increased by 11.5 percent to $6.31 billion, by in comparison last year sales in the third quarter were $5.66 billion, CNBC reported. The growth is not where the company expected it to be and falls short of their quarterly earnings goals. The company earned $6.23 billion compared to the expected $6.25 billion.
While we say boo-hoo because billions are billions, Starbucks did report seeing a slight increase – 1 percent – in the amount of money being spent at US stores during each visit, according to the AP.
Starbucks may be crying the blues, but they did what they promised and closed more than 8,000 company-owned stores in the United States on the afternoon of May 29 to conduct racial-bias education geared toward preventing discrimination in their stores.
It was an expensive lesson for Starbucks after Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson settled a lawsuit against Starbucks after their arrest while sitting inside a Philadelphia location went viral.
Nelson and Robinson were sitting in a Starbucks waiting for a business associate when a manger decided to call the police on the young men for just sitting there. Video of the two composed, calm gentlemen being put in handcuffs for no reason went viral and nationwide support pushed for a boycott of the popular coffee chain.
The two men negotiated for the city to fund a $200,000 entrepreneur program for Philadelphia public high school students and took a symbolic $1 each.
One of the things that came out of the training is a new police that Starbucks will now have an open-door bathroom.
