![]() They started buying cups from previous collections released in China, Hong Kong, Australia, and other locales, and trading amongst themselves. The resale market really ramped up during the pandemic, as cup collectors found themselves stuck at home and many actual retail locations were closed. In Starbucks cup collector groups, most of which are private, it’s not uncommon to see even less-rare cups selling for $100 or more. A clear cup decorated with pink alpacas from a 2019 collection released only in China sold on December 4 for $1,075.99, and a 2009 mug from a store in Corfu, Greece, fetched a whopping $1,875 in late November. Spaulding’s first beloved cup retails for $24.95 at Starbucks, but sells for as much as $50 on eBay. When the cups hit the secondary market, it’s often at a pretty substantial mark-up. Spaulding doesn’t consider herself a reseller, but does occasionally snag duplicates when she’s out shopping to help her fellow cup enthusiasts find the specific colors and prints they want. It’s not uncommon for collectors to post photos in their Facebook groups of what’s available at their nearby Starbucks while they’re actually at the store, willing to snap up cups for those who can’t make it out for the hunt. That shared level of intense commitment has produced a great deal of camaraderie in these groups, with collectors making close friends with the folks they’re selling to and buying from. Hundreds of seriously dedicated resellers wake up in the wee hours of the morning, sometimes forming lines outside Starbucks locations, to clear the shelves of newly released tumblers before anyone ever orders a cup of coffee. ![]() Scattered across Facebook groups, Instagram accounts, and reselling platforms like eBay and Poshmark, this secondary market gives collectors the opportunity to score special-edition, limited-release cups that are only available in certain locales. ![]() “And it just opened up a whole new world for me, and then I really got into it.” “I fell in love with that studded look,” she says. Things really changed in 2019, though, when Starbucks released its now-iconic matte black studded tumbler for cold drinks. Over the next couple of years, she slowly collected more cups and became involved in online Facebook groups for cup collectors. Which means that collectors have to visit the stores or make a foray into a secondary market that is both thriving and competitive.Īshley Spaulding, a collector in Fort Worth, Texas, got her first reusable Starbucks cup as a gift from her husband in 2017. The drinkware retails between $20 and $30, and is almost always sold out on the Starbucks website. These collectors are obsessed with Starbucks limited merch, like hard plastic tumblers decorated with flowers or iced coffee cups made from recycled glass. Obviously, we’re not talking about Starbucks’s regular, disposable paper cups or cold-drink single-use plastic cups. But for a growing number of seriously devoted collectors, Starbucks’s reusable cold cups, tumblers, and mugs are the number-one real draw, so much so that people are hitting upwards of 20 Starbucks locations in a single morning - driven not by the caffeine in their veins, but the hope of scoring the most coveted new releases. Whether you’re obsessed with dirty chai lattes or love the sugar rush of a white chocolate mocha Frappuccino, it’s what’s inside the cup that you care most about. ![]() Most people who love Starbucks are in it for the drinks.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |