Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Competitive Advantage in Park Royal Coffee Shop

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?