Last week, a friend of mine
took me to a new fancy coffee shop recently opened in West Vancouver ’s famous Park Royal shopping
center. Location is prime and a French name makes it even more attractive. Inside
the shop, I was wondering about its competitive advantage. Three issues draw my
attention: haircut of the supervisor, her attitude and the way she handled bakery.
Her haircut was disgusting. I noticed none of seniors ever looked that
direction. Then her attitude was unique. A customer asked for napkin and she
shouted and pointed to the bar in the shop. By no surprise, the napkin
container on the standing bar was empty. The last issue was her way of
preparation of pies to put in oven in front of the eyes of the customers. Nice
idea and wrong way to do it! She was doing it with bare hands! I noticed some
people shaking their heads. Isn't that funny that a business man invests such huge
amount of money in a competitive coffee shop business and display the competitive
advantage in this way?