PORTLAND, Ore. — Starbucks launched a major new initiative today, allowing people to place orders from their iPhone for pick-up at a nearby store.
As part of the launch, Adam Brotman, Starbucks’ Chief Digital Officer, gave GeekWire a sneak peek of how it works, detailing the process from placing the order on the phone (in this case, a Gingerbread Latte and Cranberry Bliss Bar) to picking it up from the counter minutes later.
In an interview, Brotman explained that the goal of the program is to increase the output of stores while also improving the customer experience. “We hope this will give us a throughput increase as much or more as anything we’ve done in the past,” he said.
For now, the pilot program is running only in 152 Starbucks cafes in Portland, so unless you have plans to be in the Rose City, your best bet for experiencing it firsthand is to watch the video embedded below. Starbucks will continue the rolling out the service to more cities in 2015, with the aim of being nationwide by the end of the year.
