Godiva plans to open 2,000 cafes by 2025

[Brian Lutz]

https://komonews.com/news/nation-world/ ... 2000-cafes

It seems that Godiva is branching out from their traditional chocolate business and moving more into Starbucks territory, with plans to open 2,000 cafes worldwide over the next six years (about 700 would be in the US.) Seems like a risky move (especially at that scale) but I can't imagine that selling expensive chocolates in malls is exactly a formula for growth at this point.

[Alpha8472]

These types of cafes are nothing for Starbucks to worry about. In California, we have See's Candies stores that have been in business for decades. I have yet to see one close. They have relocated, but never closed. People love chocolate and keep coming back for the free samples.

This type of cafe will probably just be a way of advertising Godiva chocolates and getting the name out there. I have never bought Godiva chocolates due to the price, but if they were offering samples in a mall I would be tempted to try them. The real money is made from people buying boxes of Godiva and giving them away during holidays. If more people get to try the chocolate in person, sales will go up.

[storewanderer]

I wonder if they plan to franchise these or run them corporate. It will all come down to execution.

With their prices, there is no room for any failure. It must be perfect.

Seems like a risky move, I agree.

[buckguy]

They're really banking on high end malls outside the US. They will have a limited number of places where this would work here. The model is probably small boutique-ish operations like Jacques Torres in NYC, but that would have to deliver on really unqiue products (which Torres does) to make this work.