At the start of November, Starbucks unveiled their seasonal cups for the holidays, as well as a special reusable red cup that was limited edition and free. Unfortunately, they weren’t prepared for the customers to actually want the cups.
On November 2, Starbucks customers who ordered one of the six returning holiday drinks were treated to a reusable red cup. The cup was a free gift while supplies lasted, and for anyone with the cup, if you brought it in from November 3 until January 7, you would be treated to 50 cents off your order.
The problem came when it was finally time to deliver on the promise of those free red cups. As Delish reported, fans of the Starbucks holiday drink menu came out in droves in order to get their hands on this special red cup, only to be disappointed when they got to the coffee shop.
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The disappointment led to many of these customers heading to Twitter to vent their frustrations. In Tweets tagging the company, customers shared their stories of how they couldn’t get their hands on these free reusable cups. Some explained that they tried to order on the app only for the app to crash and not work. Others showed pictures of orders as early as 7 in the morning that didn’t come in the red cups.
Speaking to different locations, customers revealed what they learned about these free reusable cups. In some tweets it was shared that there were locations that only received 25 of these red cups. One location in Dallas said they only received 50 of the cups. With so few cups being distributed among the stores, it makes sense that places ran out of these limited edition red cups.
Very disappointed just got my gingerbread lattés But was told they only gave away 25 reusable red cups? That’s hardly “while supplies last”... #false #sad #imprettysuretheyhavemore pic.twitter.com/0CbZnmTfvC
— Dave Supp (@SuppDave) November 2, 2018
We totally understand the frustration shared by so many Twitter users. We tried to get our hands on the red cup ourselves, only to be disappointed. Many of the stores had run out of the freebie well before noon.
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While we totally understand the theory of “while supplies last,” it certainly seems like these supplies were so limited that you basically had to be at Starbucks as soon as they opened their doors. Plus, once the free red cups were gone, they apparently began selling them for $2.50, which certainly didn’t make customers happy who tried to get one of the freebies.
How about you supply the stores with adequate inventory if these #red cups? Disappointed in this marketing.
— sonyage (@sonyaga) November 5, 2018
The company took to Twitter to respond to some of the complaints, although they seemed to only focus on the issue with customers ordering on the app. Starbucks apologized for the wide-spread disappointment, while also saying they were looking to resolve the issue. Otherwise, the answer was simply that supplies were limited and only participating stores were given the free cups.
For many customers, the excitement of the free reusable red cup was crushed by the fact that stores simply did not have enough for the demand. After promoting the red cup and the benefits associated with it, Starbucks simply did not have enough to go around.
Did you go to Starbucks on Nov. 2 to try to get a free cup? Were you able to get your hands on one of the free reusable red cups?