On Tuesday, the hashtag "reminded to order 5 times during a 1-hour meeting at Starbucks" trended on social media. The controversy began on October 21, when Starbucks China released its "Third Place" Initiative, announcing that starting October 22, a new "purchase to sit" policy would be implemented across its stores nationwide, sparking widespread discussion among consumers.
Starbucks previously revealed that the brand already operates more than 1,100 stores in Shanghai, making it the city with the largest number of Starbucks locations worldwide. On October 22, reporters conducted on-site visits and found that multiple Starbucks stores in Shanghai had gradually rolled out signs reading "Starbucks Seating Area - Please Make a Purchase to Be Seated." At regular intervals, staff members would patrol the entire floor and proactively remind customers who had not made a purchase to order something.
At around 3 p.m., a reporter stayed at a Starbucks store for about half an hour and received a reminder from staff: "Hello, if there's anything you'd like to drink, you can take a look at the menu and go place your order up front." At the outdoor seating area, four customers who had been seated for about ten minutes without making a purchase also received similar reminders.
"Because of work needs, I frequently work outside and I'm also a regular Starbucks customer," Ms. Yang, a local resident, told reporters. On the morning of October 22, when she arrived at a store, it was sparsely populated with plenty of available seats. She had to urgently join an online meeting and planned to place an order afterward, but within about an hour and a half, staff approached her five times to remind her to order, and the repeated interruptions left her feeling very frustrated.
"There's nothing wrong with a business seeking profit and implementing a purchase-to-sit policy, but frequent urging can make customers feel like they're being pushed out. In the end, I went to place my order at another Starbucks nearby," she said.
At noon on October 22, reporters from "Urban Live" also observed at the Starbucks store in Nanchang Wangfujing that no clear purchase-to-sit signage was displayed outside the store, though signs reading "Please Make a Purchase to Be Seated" were placed on tables inside. Store staff told reporters that customers who have not made a purchase and enter for a brief rest generally would not be forcibly asked to leave; however, if paying customers need seats — for example, if they need a seat with a power outlet, or if three or four customers arrive together and there are insufficient seats — staff would ask non-paying customers to leave.
As the "third place" begins to draw clear boundaries, the discussion sparked by Starbucks' "purchase to sit" policy may be more noteworthy than the policy itself. For years, Starbucks, through its "third place" brand narrative, has provided many non-paying customers with a place to rest, work, wait for others, or even simply daydream. Now that the new policy has taken effect, some netizens have interpreted it as "ideals giving way to reality," while others believe it is a reasonable management of seating resources by the business and entirely understandable.
Starbucks responded that the company advocates friendly sharing and mutual respect, rather than conflict.
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