Starbucks Turns to Pumpkin Spice Lattes to Perk Up Sales

As Starbucks struggles with comparable sales declines, the coffeehouse giant is evidently asking, “Maybe the Pumpkin Spice Latte will fix it?”

The brand announced this week that the drink would be available Thursday (Aug. 22), marking the earliest yet return of the fan favorite, in addition to other returning fall menu items and its new Iced Apple Crisp Nondairy Cream Chai.

“Since its debut in 2003 the Pumpkin Spice Latte continues to be Starbucks most popular seasonal beverage and is enjoyed by customers around the world,” the company stated in the announcement.

The move comes as part of Starbucks’ previously stated goal to use the seasonal latte to boost customer engagement in the fourth quarter.

“We believe our Q4 product offerings, including the return of Pumpkin Spice, combined with supporting marketing activities and offers provides the right formula to drive customer interest, demand, and deeper engagement with both new and existing customers,” Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan told analysts on the company’s most recent earnings call last month.

Pumpkin Spice by the Numbers

The coffeehouse giant’s fiscal fourth quarter marks the beginning of its Pumpkin Spice season, typically ending in late September or early October. The chain’s financial results for the quarter in recent years have shown this late summer/early fall period yielding slightly above-average sales, with net revenues in Q4 of 2022 and 2023 coming in 4% higher than the company’s per-quarter average.

According to Starbucks, the chain has sold “hundreds of millions” of these lattes. A CNN report from August 2022, before the drink’s return that year, offered a more exact figure, stating that by that point, the coffeehouse company had sold more than 600 million since the launch of the drink in 2003.

Plus, ABC reports that the company sells about 20 million of the beverage each year. That amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars in sales each year.

But Will Consumers Go for It?

The beverage may have an enthusiastic following, but consumers are being careful about how they spend on restaurant purchases, and many may not be so willing to shell out for the premium beverage. The item’s price can vary by location, but when a PYMNTS writer checked the price of a beverage at a store in Wisconsin, the state with roughly the median cost of living, a Grande-sized Pumpkin Spice Latte cost $6.25.

Yet consumers are feeling the strain of beverage price increases. Research from the latest installment of PYMNTS Intelligence’s series “New Reality Check: The Paycheck-to-Paycheck Report,” the “How Consumer Perception of Inflation Forces Many to Trade Down” edition, finds that consumers estimate beverage price increases to amount to anywhere between 16% and 29%, depending on financial lifestyle.

Amid these rising costs, consumers are tightening their belts. The same study found that the vast majority have made changes to their spending to cope with restaurant price increases. Ninety-eight percent of those who live paycheck to paycheck with issues paying bills, 95% of those who paycheck to paycheck without issues paying bills and 73% of those who do not live paycheck to paycheck reported making such changes.

While the beverage has consistently driven above-average seasonal sales and contributed significantly to the company’s revenue, the question remains whether consumers, who are increasingly mindful of rising prices, will continue to indulge in the premium-priced drink.