I just grabbed myself a small coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts across the street. I only wanted a small, because it’s almost 4:30pm, and having a coffee this late in the day in general, is asking for trouble. As I was walking back to the office, I remembered how much I hate the small coffee cups at Dunkin’ Donuts. It’s the only size, that uses the flat lids, where the plastic sits almost flush with the level of the liquid inside. Which means if you try to drink from this cup while walking, you almost invariably end up wearing the first three or four sips. It’s not a fun time. I love DD, but why don’t they use the same cup design for all sizes? Why does the small get this design, while the mediums and up, get a much nicer, much less spilly design?
And another thing while we’re talking Dunkin’ cups…
This time of year (summer), you’ll see nearly every other iced coffee orderer, asking for an extra (empty) styrofoam cup to put their plastic iced coffee cup into. For insulation I presume.
Some Dunkin’ Donuts have put up signs by the registers that inform these double-cuppers, that cup #2 will cost them an extra 30 cents or so. Which is reasonable, since there is most certainly a cost associated with the extra packaging. But since this sign is at the register, and the second cup request almost always happens at the delivery point of the coffee (after the coffee has been paid for), this system isn’t optimal. It may deter some people from asking for the second cup, but it’s unlikely you’d be denied by the coffee runner behind the counter, due to the small disconnect between the runner and the ringer at the register.
So the double cupping summer phenomenon begs a few questions from me.
- Does Dunkin’ Donuts track how many empty hot cups are given out to insulate full iced cups? Seems like the math is do-able. The number of cups ordered and used by a DD outlet, should be essentially equal to the number of drinks sold in each size and temperature. So measuring the delta should be a decent indicator of how often this happens. Once done, you’d presumably be able to determine the value of that delta, and get an understanding of how it may be affecting your bottom line.
- And to that point, if it were affecting the bottom line, would it make sense to just make iced coffee cups that had a more heavily insulated area where it’s held?
- And lastly, how come you NEVER see this (the double cupping on iced drinks) at Starbucks? The cups are presumably made out of the same plastics, the liquid inside is presumably the same temperature. Are Starbucks customers just tougher? Probably not. Is it because they maybe use those little cardboard hot cup sleeves, on their iced cups? Maybe, but I don’t often see this. Or maybe it’s simply because the iced cups don’t FIT inside of the hot cups at Starbucks. Maybe that’s it.
Who knows. Maybe I’ve just had too much caffeine.