Starbucks Relaunching Bad Music Kiosk Idea

from the uh,-there's-a-reason-this-failed dept

Thu, Mar 11th 2004 1:12pm — Mike Masnick

Try, try again... Submitted by a lot of people, comes this story about Starbucks looking to offer their own "burn your own CD" music kiosk service. We've written about in store kiosks multiple times before - partly because every year or so, some new company thinks they've invented the something new and launches a big publicity campaign. Every time, these things fail - and for pretty obvious reasons. However, for Starbucks' sake, we can go through the list one more time. First, and most importantly, these machines break. Constantly. You have the public banging away on them, and they will break - and your average Starbucks worker probably won't be able to fix them. If you only have one or two per store, that puts a serious crimp on usability. It looks like they're doing one smart thing in letting users with laptops get the music on their own (to avoid this issue), but you wonder if that's only going to work in conjunction with their (expensive) WiFi connections. So, then, if you're only downloading to your own machine, why do you need Starbucks? Why not just use one of the hundred other music download services out there - especially when this is priced the same? Even more to the point, who really wants to go to Starbucks to buy music?

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8 Comments

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Michael Kohne, 11 Mar 2004 @ 1:20pm

Why buy music at Starbucks?
My guess that the reason they think they can make a go of this is precisely that people DON'T come to Starbucks to buy music. My guess is that they intend this as sort of an 'impulse buy' kind of deal, rather than this being a destination. Kind of a 'well, I'm here anyway...' sale.

I imagine that getting CDs will NOT be particularly profitable because it will take too long. Selling music to folks already using the WiFi might go over better (and has the advantage that the hardware doesn't break quite so regularly).

I also doubt that it will make a profit, but I think it will do better than previous efforts.
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Mike (not that Mike), 11 Mar 2004 @ 2:34pm

Re: Why buy music at Starbucks?
Hear, hear on the concept of impulse buying. While reading this, I connected it to the current concept of having the CD that's currently playing in the store for sale at the cash register. I wonder if there's some backroom executive's dream of payola to get played on the centrally controlled Starbucks(Tm) music stream and product placement.
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euman, 12 Mar 2004 @ 2:49am

Why buy coffee at Starbucks?
These guys drive out decent coffee sellers and then sell terrible coffee at ludicrous prices!
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Garret, 20 Oct 2004 @ 7:58pm

Music Kiosk
Do you think a music kiosk would do good in a retail store? Ex Kmart or Wal-Mart.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Mar 2006 @ 2:24pm

Music, Photo & Ringtone Kiosk
Our unit works. You can't br right about everything.
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Bill, 4 Mar 2006 @ 2:29pm

The Real Deal
We have a Music & Photo Kiosk that really works. Check out our website at www.digistreamtech.com

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justanotherguy, 12 Jul 2007 @ 12:52am

Music Kiosks
I feel the entire concept of Music Kiosks is wrong.No body wants to select music on a self service desk which is mostly located in a crowded environment where he cant think peacefully.
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wren, 16 Jul 2007 @ 4:52pm

Kiosks
If you're just pushing MP3s there's nothing special about the kiosk idea. You can buy tracks from Itunes et al much easier. How multimedia is different. If they offer video, stills, interviews in addition to the music tracks there could be a demand. You just need a media better than DVDs.
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