Starbucks announces plans to get into NFT business

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has announced plans to get into the non-fungible-token (NFT) business. Schultz was speaking in a town hall meeting aimed at Starbucks workers amid a massive union drive.
The company in a statement said that it is working on “digital innovation through NFTs and plans for continued evolution of partner benefits, with more detail expected in the weeks ahead.”
In a video shared on Twitter Jordan Zakarin, a reporter and producer for More Perfect Union, Schultz talks about NFTs. “If you look at the companies, the brands, the celebrities, the influencers, that are trying to create a digital NFT platform and business, I can’t find one of them that has the treasure trove of assets that Starbucks has – from collectibles to entire heritage of the company,” Schultz said, adding that the coffee chain is going to get into NFT business “sometime before the end of this calendar year.”

NFTs are anything starting from art, music, GIF, or even a tweet can be turned into a digital assets. According to nonfungible.com, NFTs boomed in 2021 with trading volume soaring to $17.6 billion from just $82 million in 2020 amid tech evangels and celebrities flocking into the NFT bandwagon.
This development comes as Schultz’s returned as Starbucks chief executive officer, he spoke to a global audience of an estimated 15,000 partners (employees). It should be noted that he stepped into the role after Kevin Johnson ended a five-year run at the helm.
The Starbucks CEO is also returning at a time where the company was hit coronavirus pandemic and was forced to shut down several physical locations worldwide. He said that the company is all set to re-imagine the customer experience.

“Starbucks Experience all over the world is now somewhat confined the fact that people are not using our stores the same way. And so all those stores that we have that have big lobbies, they may not be as relevant tomorrow as they have been in the past. We have to redefine, redesign our store experience,” Schultz noted.
One of the first steps Schultz has been to suspend the company’s stock repurchase program, effective immediately, in order to invest in Starbucks partners and stores for long-term growth. “I am not in business … to make every single decision based on the stock price, or the quarter, or EPS, or adding shareholder value at the expense of our people or our customers,” he added.