I couldn’t believe what I was reading, “Starbucks to roll out $450 gift card” courtesy of USA Today.
For real? I felt like the guys from ESPN’s Monday Night Football broadcast crew, “C’mon, man!”
If you didn’t see the story: Apparently a $7 cup of coffee isn’t good enough, so they’re now selling a gift card made completely of steel (just like your stomach must be to drink their coffee) for $450. The good news is that it comes pre-loaded with $400 in credits, so it’s really only a $50 card with $400 of coffee on it, but still. My question is: Is this too much? Has Starbucks finally gone overboard? What purpose does this serve? What’s wrong with the iPhone app? It works the same!
Of course, being an investigative journalist for this burgeoning website, I decided to research deeper. Apparently, this card is only going to be available on the website Gilt.com. What is Gilt? It’s a smorgasbord of $85,000 watches and $1,500 pairs of shoes. You know…just in case your Timex ever runs out of batteries. And there are no other batteries available. Anywhere. Ever again.
Do I have you sufficiently fired up? Are you tired of this all-you-can-eat-and-then-eat-some-more-until-you’re-utterly-exhausted-type of consumerism? Have you had enough?
Me neither.
I absolutely love it. I think it’s the worlds most awesome thing that people exist who buy $450 Starbucks cards and $1,500 loafers. I’m so happy that those people have a heartbeat. I’m not personally overly materialistic, but I do have some nice things and I have things on my “wish list” that someday I’d like to buy. On the very top of that list is a red Ferrari. I just think it would be cool. And no, I’ve never driven one. Someday? We’ll see.
I love the fact that we’re able to make our own buying choices, and for the most part, must pay the consequences of those actions (except the federal, state, and local governments. Don’t get me started). Consumer spending counts for nearly 70% of our GDP. I say: the more the merrier. I hope they sell out of those cards. They’re only making 5,000 of them, so by my math that’s $2,000,000 of pre-bought coffee.
That’s a whole lot of no-whip peppermint mocha lattes.