Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/starbucks-plans-to-close-600-stores-as-sales-slide Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Starbucks announced Wednesday the closure of 600 stores and plans for staff cutbacks after a drop in sales. Lee Hochberg reports on the economic shifts behind the company's losses and how the coffee giant plans to recover. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. LEE HOCHBERG, NewsHour Correspondent: The jokes about Starbucks' wild success are legion, like Starbucks building a Starbucks inside another Starbucks. With 15,000 stores worldwide, almost 50 million customers buy something from Starbucks every week.But the company suddenly is taking as many shots as it's pouring. CEO Howard Schultz was downright contrite as he addressed 6,000 stockholders at the company's recent annual meeting in Seattle. HOWARD SCHULTZ, Starbucks: I humbly recognize and share both your concern and your disappointment in how the company has performed and how that has affected your investment in Starbucks. LEE HOCHBERG: The company's stock has lost almost half its value in a year. And in the last two quarters, customer traffic has declined for the first time ever. Starbucks, the CEO said, has lost its way. HOWARD SCHULTZ: We somehow evolved from a culture of entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation to a culture of, in a way, mediocrity and bureaucracy. LEE HOCHBERG: Schultz, who left the CEO position in 2000, was considered the architect of Starbucks' phenomenal rise, but he was brought back this January to try to give a double-shot pick-me-up to his sagging $9 billion company. A stockholder offered an opinion. RUTH KYLE, Starbucks Shareholder: I told my husband a long time ago, I don't think they should expand so quickly. I think they ought to concentrate on what they have now rather than keep going elsewhere.