---
title: "Starbucks Makes One Crucial Pivot, Starbucks Stock (NASDAQ:SBUX) Slips"
type: "News"
locale: "en"
url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/292657138.md"
description: "Starbucks is addressing past operational issues, such as high turnover and declining same-store sales, by investing $500 million in labor and linking compensation to customer service performance. While these strategic pivots aim to improve outcomes, the stock slipped slightly on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Japanese locations are launching new granita flavors. Wall Street maintains a Moderate Buy consensus with an average price target of $112.74."
datetime: "2026-07-14T16:29:51.000Z"
locales:
  - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/292657138.md)
  - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/292657138.md)
  - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/292657138.md)
---

# Starbucks Makes One Crucial Pivot, Starbucks Stock (NASDAQ:SBUX) Slips

Coffee giant Starbucks (SBUX) was in trouble just a couple years ago. Sales were flagging, and the store was so overbuilt it was actually a joke. _The Simpsons_ famously mocked Starbucks by making it so pervasive that it briefly occupied every storefront in the Springfield Mall. It turns out that one particular issue was largely responsible for a lot of Starbucks' problems, and that issue was turnover. When Starbucks focused on fixing that, it gained some new advantages. That did not help so much in the day-to-day, though, based on the fractional loss in Starbucks shares seen in Tuesday afternoon's trading.

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Back in 2024, Starbucks discovered a significant problem. Same-store sales were in decline, the employees were clearly restless, and customers were complaining that it was harder to be a Starbucks customer than it really needed to be. So Starbucks put a new focus on a combined effort of labor and technology to produce better outcomes, and the results seem to be taking hold.

Starbucks put $500 million into labor, paying for more hours so that more employees could cover the busiest shifts. The recent move to connect compensation to customer service in the form of bonuses for stores that met performance goals did not hurt either. Plus, incentives designed to better tie leadership to stores and reduce their turnover is helping as well; the best-performing coffeehouses are those whose leaders have been in the role for a year or more.

## **A Japanese Treat**

The Japanese Starbucks locations, meanwhile, are rolling out something a little extra special for the hot days of summer yet to come. Starbucks locations in Japan brought back their granita series, a kind of shaved ice dish, and added two new flavors: white peach and lychee bouquet.

The granita is based on the Sicilian model rather than the standard Japanese kakigori shaved ice dessert, reports note, and will instead turn to a multi-layered setup using fruit, jelly, and sauce instead of the syrup topping that kakigori normally turns to. The end result is a dish that "evolves" as you eat it, with new combinations of flavors steadily emerging throughout.

## **Is Starbucks Stock a Good Buy?**

Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on SBUX stock based on 17 Buys and nine Holds assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 16.07% rally in its share price over the past year, the average SBUX price target of $112.74 per share implies 5.17% upside potential.

### Related Stocks

- [SBUX.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/SBUX.US.md)
- [RANK.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/RANK.US.md)

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