Being both a blogger and an avid Nespresso lover, I have done quite a bit of research on Nespresso products (especially the and found a number of interesting facts both good and bad about the product.
Marketing for Nespresso has consisted largely of social media with both an interactive Facebook page and the services of two high profile celebrities, George Clooney and John Malcovich.
Apparently selling coffee in little capsules is an incredibly effective means of doing so as current market estimates suggest that packaged portions of coffee are currently the fastest growing segmant of the overall coffee market currently accounting for an incredibly twenty to forty percent of European sales.
Nespresso currently show no signs of slowing down. In 2010, a report surfaced indicating that sales have been increasing at a rate of thirty percent per year since the year 2000.
The total number of Nespresso capsules sold since that date is above the twenty billion capsule mark. A pretty staggering figure considering the current selling price is between forty two and sixty two cents each.
The fact that Nespresso is the only company to sell capsules compatible with Nespresso machines is a source of constant criticism. Similarily to almost all markets in which a monopoly has been present, no competition has lead to a lower choice of flavours and little pressure for the company to reduce the price of their capsules.
Nespresso are likely to soon lose said monopoly however. In March of this year, A Swiss supermarket chain by the Name of Denver won a court battle against Nespresso after the company tried to make them stop selling coffee capsules that were compatible with Nespresso machines. The discount supermarket chain currently sells the coffee capsules for half the price of actual Nespresso capsules.
In conclusion, purchasing Nespresso machines kind of makes no sense whatsoever. With a price estimated to be on average three times that of purchasing your coffee in the jar and an impact on the environment that is frankly kind of ridiculous, these machines are for want of a better word, kind of stupid. The problem is however that they are just so damn convenient that I cannot seem to stop myself from liking them. And according to the above Nespresso sales figures, I am not the only one.
