The Mystery of Coffee Refills
barriers to behavioral change are not always obvious
Posted Apr 21, 12:30 am in business, economics, environment, human nature, marketing, sustainability, unanswered questions
There is a Peet’s Coffee stand in the cafeteria of the building where I spend my days. They have a deal where you can bring in any size container and get a refill for $1.50. The cheapest size of coffee you can buy without getting a refill is $1.65, for a small size. I’m not a big coffee drinker, but as the semester rolls to a close, I find myself going there somewhat frequently. I always bring my old cup so I can get the refill. It saves me a few cents, and besides, I don’t like throwing away coffee cups. It’s not just the cup that bothers me, it’s the heat-insulating jacket and the plastic lid as well. It seems like a lot of stuff to be throwing out, especially if you buy coffee every day, or multiple times a day.
What I find very strange is that I’m surrounded by people who drink a lot of coffee— like 3-4 cups a day— and yet I feel like I’m the lone soul who brings in his used cup to refill. This seems particularly odd because a lot of the people around me are other students who, like me, are living their lives dangerously close to the poverty line and could probably use every cent that they might save.
Unsure about this incongruity, I asked the cashier one day if many people refill their cups. “Hardly anyone,” she replied, “but there are some people who refill huge containers.” She motioned with her hands to show how big the containers were. They were rather large.
Peet’s is apparently okay with this abuse of their refill policy, but the cashier seemed to think it was crazy. The reason Peet’s is okay with it probably has something to do with the facts that 1) they want to promote some kind of environmentalism, 2) refills save money on cups, lids, and insulators which are somewhat expensive, 3) it serves to reduce their waste disposal costs, and 4) hardly anyone gets refills.
But I find the fact that few people get refills curious. Of the people who frequent this coffee shop, many of them are graduate students, staff, and professors, who have offices within the building. Many of the undergraduates have storage lockers in the building as well. Yet the incentive structure is apparently not appealing enough for many of these people to get refills.
For a number of reasons, it is very interesting to observe the lack of consumer response to this initiative. First, it’s not very difficult for anyone to take advantage of it; that is, it doesn’t really create much inconvenience (especially for the customers who have offices or lockers within the building). Second, it demands very little change to habitualized behavior to get the refill (people just have to remember to take the cup with them to the coffee shop). Third, people— particularly those who drink a lot of coffee and multiple coffees per day— stand to save a good amount of money (if you buy a large coffee, you can save some 60 cents per drink, which can add up very quickly). Fourth, it demonstrates how inured we are to our disposable culture; the thought of refilling probably doesn’t occur to most people because they’ve simply never lived their lives in this manner.
As a person interested in understanding how to make behavioral change more appealing in social marketing contexts (this being of environmental concern to me), I note this: despite the bevy of benefits (reduced costs to the consumer, access to virtually infinite quantities of coffee, significant reduction of environmental waste) and the relatively minor drawbacks (you have to keep the cup and remember to bring it when you visit the store), this effort to promote refilling has generally failed. So I ask: what kinds of changes need to happen to make the reuse of coffee cups appealing for the customers of this particular store?
Post your thoughts or comments below, particularly if you are a regular customer of this or any coffee shop!
[Note: I realize that if you read the previous entry on this blog, it may seem to conflict with my attitude here. I should explain: this entry is about encouraging behavioral change that promotes certain ideals; the previous entry was expressing frustration with the repeated insinuations from industry that behavioral change is unnecessary if you just buy the right products. That said, I do not mean to discount the importance of careful and well-considered consumption, and its role in making social impacts; I simply reject it as a singular strategy.]
I was just thinking that maybe the key is to get people to think about coffee mugs the same way they think about reusable shopping bags—stores would need to provide the equivalent of the $2 TJ’s bags for sale next to the register. The mugs for sale are usually $10+ and seem nicer, not so much something you would buy on an impulse to avoid using a paper cup. If they had reusable mugs or travel cups that cost a dollar or so each, and would allow you to fill up lots of coffee or get unlimited refills, maybe people would think of buying one rather than using a paper cup.
Or maybe there could be a deposit system, so you don’t end up with dozens of mugs at home. As long as you clean the mugs yourself, you could bring your extra ones back to the store and have your money returned, sort of like with glass milk bottles.
— me · Apr 27, 02:25 pm · #
Yo dude, coffee is insanely cheap for them to make and the markup is HIGH as FOCCCCK!
Yo we should start a coffee bidness. Let’s call it Casino Coffee where every half hour a random winner gets free coffee.
— Yo Dude · Jul 16, 01:00 am · #
@Yo dude: It’s true that the mark-up is high, but it’s because you’d need to sell a huge volume of it if you sold it any cheaper. The reality is that people come to coffee shops, buy a $1.50 coffee and sit there all day with their laptops. This, as you can imagine, is not desirable. Once you add up labor, rent, disposable cups, garbage fees, etc. it’s actually surprising that coffee is so cheap!
For a long time, I actually thought a great business to get into was potato chips. A potato costs like 5 cents. Though oil is somewhat expensive, a bag of chips sells for $3.50 or something. In terms of ingredients, that couldn’t be more than 50 cents, I would think. Yet, Jay’s Potato Chip company out of Chicago (who make my favorite brand of chip, Jalapeno Krunchers), is apparently in financial straits at the moment. This suggests to me that something is wrong in my assessment of this “get-rich-quick” business model.
— Rahul · Jul 16, 11:38 am · #