Starbucks In Japan Introduces Pen To Pay For Coffee

Japan is famous for being technologically advanced and is known for its brilliant innovations.  Starbucks in Japan is also following the trend and has been introducing various technologically driven products.  These products are quite useful and help make the customers’ shopping experience better. Starbucks’ stores in Japan have a whole range of products which can be used by the customers to pay from a digital wallet.  The range of products comes under the “Starbucks Touch” category and includes items like a flask, phone case and a wallet called The Hug. 

Now, Starbucks added another product, a pen, to their Starbucks Touch collection.  Starbucks collaborated with Japanese stationery company Zebra to release the pen. Called Starbucks Touch The Pen, the pen is designed as a drip coffee machine and includes coffee brown gel ink, which is a constant reminder of a perfect cup of coffee. 

The pen, just like other products in the collection, comes with a near field communication (NFC) reader embedded in it.  NFC is a kind of technology which allows the transfer of information between two devices, when placed next to each other.  The pen works using the FeliCa technology, which is a smart card system introduced by Sony and is widely used in Japan. The FeliCa technology is also used in the Starbucks domestic card system. 

The pen is available in black, white and silver and can only be purchased from the Starbucks online store.  The pen is priced at 4,000 yen ($ 37.46) and includes a preloaded amount of 1,000 yen ($ 9.37,) which is stored in a digital wallet.

Although the Touch Pen is not that different from the existing online payment options, the device can be considered a part of new technologies which can contribute to saving customers’ time.