Park Jae-hyuk is a seasoned journalist who has provided comprehensive coverage of South Korea's corporate dynamics, economic policies, industry challenges and the global positioning of Korean companies. Based on the articles he has written since joining The Korea Times in 2016, his investigative approach has helped readers understand corporate governance, economic trends and business strategies shaping South Korea’s economy.
Big data boosts Starbucks Korea's sales
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A Starbucks Coffee Korea employee demonstrates the company’s Siren Order application in this file photo. The coffee shop chain has received 100,000 more mobile orders on average monthly after adding its big data service on its app. / Courtesy of Starbucks Coffee Korea
By Park Jae-hyuk
By Park Jae-hyuk
Starbucks Coffee Korea has received 100,000 more mobile orders on average monthly, since it added a big data-based recommendation service to its Siren Order application last November, the local unit of the U.S. coffeehouse said Sunday.
Siren Order, an online-to-offline (O2O) app service which was launched in Korea in May 2014, enables customers to order and pay for food and coffee with their smartphones.
According to the company, the upgraded app analyzes each individual customer’s recent purchases, information about stores that they visited and temperatures, so as to recommend preferable drinks and foods to them.
If customers run their Siren Order app, the app shows suggestions of food and drinks to buy such as “What you recently purchased,” “Starbucks beverages that wake you up,” and “How about a warm drink on cold days,” depending on time and the weather.
The app also offers preferable combinations of food and beverages to customers. When Starbucks releases new products, the app can recommend the best combinations to each individual within a few days.
In particular, 37 percent of mobile orders have been made via the recommendation service, the company said. Starbucks Coffee Korea expects more customers will use the service when they make their orders.
“The individualized recommendation service has its significance, given that it collects and analyzes big data to offer the most preferable products to our customers,” Starbucks Coffee Korea’s marketing and digital director Baek Ji-woong said. “The use of big data is at an early stage. We will continue to come up with improved individualized services, by using more diverse big data.”
This is not the first time that Starbucks Coffee Korea has adopted big data technology.
The company has collected feedback from its customers to develop new beverages and foods. The specialized beverages and food exclusively available on Jeju Island could be made available to the wider public through the big data analysis.