Starbucks’s Pumpkin Spice Latte is officially back — but you probably already knew that. Despite the 90-degree weather in some areas of the U.S., the quintessential fall beverage returned to Starbucks on Tuesday, August 28th. And according to Forbes, the Starbucks PSL arrived just in time.
You may have noticed that in recent years, Starbucks has put the PSL back on the menu earlier than in years past. As recent as 2016, the PSL didn’t reappear until September 1st. But as Forbes notes, Starbucks has become more reliant on a successful PSL season to finish the year financially strong. Those extra few days at the end of August are now necessary due to new financial woes the Starbucks company has been experiencing.
Forbes reports that Starbucks’s Frappuccino sales have fallen 3% in 2018. This is a drastic decline due to the fact that Frappuccino sales are down, and they account for a sizable chunk of Starbucks’s earnings. Customers are seemingly less attracted to sugar-heavy, calorie-laden drinks. To combat this drop, Starbucks announced it would pay more attention to promoting their nitro cold brew, regular cold brew, and iced teas in coming seasons.
The PSL push comes with concern, though, as customers are also favoring Starbucks’s cold beverages over hot ones (Forbes notes that chilled drink sales have increased in the past five years).
Although the PSL is available to order chilled, most Starbucks customers agree that the PSL is best enjoyed hot.
Usually, Starbucks’s busiest month is December because people are out and about holiday shopping. November is the company’s second-busiest season, followed by September. Hopefully the PSL will result in Starbucks finishing as financially strong as possible by the end of December.
Fortunately, things look promising. According to Delish, from August 2017 to August 2018, pumpkin-flavored products have achieved $488.7 million in sales. When it comes to the Pumpkin Spice Latte, specifically, Starbucks hasn’t revealed specific numbers, but one of the brand’s reps has stated that they’ve sold 350 million of the drinks since 2003, when the drink was first released. Since a tall PSL is about $4, that means Starbucks has made approximately $1.4 billion dollars from this seasonal drink. Not too shabby.
We’ll certainly help Starbucks out. In fact, we’re headed to our nearest location ASAP to get our first PSL of the season. The weather doesn’t scare us!
Want to know if you’re destined to love the PSL? We figured out which zodiac signs are basically the Pumpkin Spice Latte’s soulmates.
