Starbucks Putting Fast' Back in Fast Food is a Winning Move - Starbucks acknowledges that long wait times from "customization chaos" has driven customers away, David Olive writes.

By some measures, Starbucks appears to be the problem child among the world’s biggest fast-food companies.But the rule about misleading appearances applies here, as we’ll see. Changes underway at Starbucks mean patrons can expect lower prices. And for investors, Starbucks stock that is trading at an 18 per cent discount to its all-time high of $157 is poised for a rebound.First, though, a review of the tumult at Starbucks.This month, Starbucks ousted its latest CEO. His replacement is Starbucks’ third CEO in just twoand-a-half years. Starbucks revenues in the U.S., its biggest market, fell by six per cent in this year’s second quarter. Starbucks acknowledges that long wait times from "customization chaos" has driven customers away, David Olive writes.

- By David Olive

By some measures, Starbucks appears to be the problem child among the world’s biggest fast-food companies.

But the rule about misleading appearances applies here, as we’ll see. Changes underway at Starbucks mean patrons can expect lower prices. And for investors, Starbucks stock that is trading at an 18 per cent discount to its all-time high of $157 is poised for a rebound.

First, though, a review of the tumult at Starbucks.

This month, Starbucks ousted its latest CEO. His replacement is Starbucks’ third CEO in just twoand-a-half years.

Starbucks revenues in the U.S., its biggest market, fell by six per cent in this year’s second quarter.

Starbucks management was already coping with unionization drives among discontented baristas when activist investors began this year to pressure the company for changes.

Starbucks can’t raise prices to assuage activist investors.

Raising prices in recent years to cover higher labour and raw material costs has triggered the defection of Starbucks patrons enduring a cost-of-living crisis that extends beyond Starbucks’ 1,450 stores in Canada to most of its biggest markets.

Starbucks patrons who used to frequent the store daily have found they can save roughly $200 a month by getting their coffee elsewhere.

Starbucks once estimated that it can customize a beverage in more than 170,000 ways.