"I cried three times through the entire movie and when Allison finally 'sees' Frank in the mirror, I completely lost it!… I want to go to Seattle, and then to New York!"

That reaction of a Weibo user to seeing the new blockbuster Chinese rom-com Finding Mr. Right is not uncommon. It's the kind of reaction that led Chinese tourism site tuniu.com to find in a recent survey that inquiries about Seattle by Chinese tourists jumped 120 percent in the last week of March, when the film debuted.

Seattle isn't letting the opportunity go to waste either, with its China-side marketing team leveraging the film's huge popularity to drive interest from a group that has become the world's most lucrative tourism demographic. A demographic that is increasingly taking its cues from popular movies, but only those that can emotionally connect.Continue reading...

Talk about vertical integration! Starbucks is taking the concept to new heights — er, depths — with its announcement of the imminent introduction of its own machine to make single cups of coffee.

The product, named Verismo, will be launched soon and sold at some Starbucks stores as well as specialty retail locations right away and then more heavily marketed and sold in the fall. The machine was developed with Krueger, a German-based company, and it "combines Starbucks signature Espresso Roast and drink recipes with precise Swiss engineering and a patent-pending high pressure extraction capability," Starbucks said in a press release.

The move is yet another bid by Starbucks to broaden and deepen its franchise over the last couple of years. The company also today, in Amsterdam, was scheduled to open its first "concept shop" laboratory meant to imbue its retail outlets with more "local flavor." Inspired by concept stores in its hometown of Seattle, the new Amsterdam store features in-house-baked cookies, for instance, and will test other ideas. It's housed in an old bank vault in the city's historic Rembrandt square.Continue reading...

Most retailers are trying to find a way to get more consumers to go online. The reasons are simple: less overhead, fewer employees with health insurance, and a much higher profit margin.

But Amazon isn’t like other retailers. The word on the street in its home base of Seattle is that Amazon is thinking about opening its first-ever brick-and-mortar location, according to the Good E-Reader blog. “Amazon sources close to the situation” tell the site that the company is aiming to open the store in the next few months. 

“This project is a test to gauge the market and see if a chain of stores would be profitable,” Good E-Reader reports. “They intend on going with the small boutique route with the main emphasis on books from their growing line of Amazon Exclusives and selling their e-readers and tablets.” At least they'll have a well-honed delivery system.Continue reading...

Starbucks is ending the year on a high note: it's expanding in China, booming on mobile, and making good on its sustainability promise with a recycled design experiment. The company's hometown of Seattle will see the brand's first location made of "up-cycled" building materials — specifically, four used shipping containers, a hot commodity in architecture and design circles these days.

Starbucks spokesman Alan Hilowitz told the New York Times that the eco-friendly concept may lead to more container stores (not to be confused with The Container Store). It will also be one of a kind for another reason, the first "among the 17,000 Starbucks stores globally in that it will be drive-up and walk-up only with no space to lounge inside."Continue reading...