Posted on 05/10/2015 9:36:50 PM PDT by nickcarraway
It’s been called the “razor blade business model.” A company sells a product like a battery-operated razor blade handle at a relatively low price in order to sell a complementary consumable product later, like the astoundingly costly Gillette Power Fusion Proglide cartridge, $18 for four blades, which then get thrown away.
But it could also be called the Keurig “K-Cup” business model. Once a consumer buys the coffee machine, the coffee drinker may spend as much as $50 to $60 per pound on the coffee contained in the K-Cups, considerably more than the cost of even Starbucks’s breakfast blend, which goes for about $11.95 per pound.
Some years back, thousands of Keurig single-serve machine fans found a cheaper alternative, however — refillable, non-disposable K-cups, little plastic coffee grounds holders, which the company graciously sold under the brand of “My K-Cup.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
A customer gave me a new Keurig, and I don’t get it, I might as well buy those cans of pre ground coffee like Folgers.
Grinding beans and making a little 4 cup pot is the way to go.
A company that doesn’t listen to its customers will go out of business.
Kreurig learned the hard way that stiffing your customers is bad for the bottom line.
The customer is always the boss.
What happened to focus groups? Avoidable.
A french press is cheaper.
Sometimes convenience is the chief motivation, not cost.
I bought my wife a small kuerig because she likes an occasional cup of “flavored” coffee...and I don’t. So now she can have that without messing up the large coffeemaker.
If you have a Kreurig 2.0 - you’re not out of luck.
Rogers Family Company sells the Freedom Clip for $1.99 with free shipping, allowing you to use ANY brand of K-cup and any brand of coffee - not just the overpriced junk Kreurig forced customers to buy to use in their coffeemaker.
https://www.gourmet-coffee.com/Keurig-DRM-Freedom-Clip.html
For some things keurig is awesome. When itisjust you, its great. For many folks i use the regular coffee maker.
I have one; I buy the cups bulk at Costco. It's not cheap but its extremely convenient and easy to clean.
I don't care if it's $1000/pound of coffee. I am not buying a pound of coffee. I am buying a convenient, hot cup of coffee that I make by inserting a cup, pressing a button, coming back in a few minutes and throwing the cup away. It's fantastic.
I have a two-sided coffee maker. One side makes a 12-cup pot (a “cup” is actually 6 oz.). The other side has two options: a K-cup or you can brew a scoop of ground coffee to fill your mug. During the work week, I take my thermos of coffee to work because the office coffee makers are always disgusting and I refuse to be the only person that ever cleans the coffee maker and pot.
On the weekend, I do the single-serve scoop or a K-cup. Really, I don’t get the angry customer part. Don’t like the price or the product? Do something else, what’s the problem?
I also think the price/pound is apples and oranges when comparing ground/beans and K-cups. The K-cup weighs about nothing but it gives me a damn strong cup of French roast that fills my 14 oz. travel mug. In the quantity that I buy it ($12 for 18 K-cups), it costs $0.67 to fill that travel mug. It’s significantly cheaper than your average mini-mart and is WAY cheaper than Starbucks.
Yeah, I could do it cheaper, but I like the convenience of the K-cup and I’m at a place in my life where I don’t feel the need to nickel-and-dime it like my college days. At $2.00 for 42 ounces of coffee, what’s the problem. And if you don’t like it, go do something else.
This is nothing but a classic case of people complaining because they can.
We love our new Keurig. My husband is the only coffee drinker and he only drinks a cup or two on the weekends. I would end up cleaning the coffee maker and throwing away the rest of the unused coffee. Even a small can of coffee grounds got stale before he could use it up. Works for us and I don’t have to clean anything.
I did order that little thinga-ma-jig that allows you to use any Kcup. It’s $1.99, free shipping and comes with a 3 cup sampler. Haven’t tried it yet.
I also bought 4 tupperware-like reusable Kcups from Amazon this week.
My husband likes being able to try the different brands and flavors before committing. Now we just have to lobby Keurig to allow an ala carte menu where you can put together your own variety box and purchase the cups singly. Sometimes you can get a 6 pack sampler in certain flavors but if you don’t like it you are stuck with 5 cups.
Freakin’ A-men!
The Keurig has an on-demand hot water feature that I use for instant cocoa and instant oatmeal. Faster than a tea kettle.
I’ve tried the lemonade and iced tea but it doesn’t make sense to brew something hot and then have to cool it off. You need twice as much ice as you would if you just made it with cold water.
Libs are so moralistic about EVERYTHING. If you like a Keurig machine and the practice of buying discreet units of coffee in a plastic cup, buy it. If you don’t, don’t.
It sounds almost perfect for your situation, but that is a rare situation.
It used to be that someone in that situation might drink instant coffee, but while the Keurig isn’t equal to fresh ground beans, it sure is better than instant.
There are several refillable cups, for use in Kuerig machines.
Our daughter gave us a Hamilton Beach coffee maker, with a conventional 12 cup on one side, and a K-cup single cup maker on the other.
Handy if you just want a single cup. I plan to buy a couple of the refillable cups, to try out.
Kuerig cup vendors make tea, chocolate, etc. as well.
K-cups are for people who can’t do simple math.
What irks me, is that these K-cup products have taken over so much *face* on stores shelves, food markets have reduced the number of other perfectly worthy coffee offerings on the shelves.
You are correct.
Besides the coffee inside a K-cup tastes like dust with dirt mixed in. It’s theorist coffee ever!
Your sister doesn't sound too bright, I don't think I'd be making this public admission. With the metric tons of reviews and articles about anything and everything (including entire websites and blogs dedicated to nothing but coffee), there's no excuse for making this stupid of a purchase.
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