Starbucks mobile orders bring traffic jams to pickup counter

Starbucks Corp.'s much-ballyhooed mobile-ordering system has brought a painful side effect to the coffee giant: traffic jams at the pickup counter.

Because customers are now able to order and pay for coffee via their phones, many of them now head directly to the part of the cafe where beverages are handed out.

That has created pileups at Starbucks and frustrated some customers enough that they have canceled orders, said Chief Operating Officer Kevin Johnson.

"The use of mobile order and pay continues to accelerate," Johnson said. "That's created congestion at the handoff."

The snags hurt U.S. sales in the first quarter, contributing to disappointing results for the world's largest coffee chain. But the company has been working to correct the problem, Johnson said.

The stakes of getting the process right are high for Starbucks, which now generates 27 percent of its U.S. sales via mobile payments. The company is counting on the system to help attract customers and speed them through its stores. Johnson, a veteran of Microsoft and Juniper Networks, is ascending to the chief executive job in April — a move seen as solidifying Starbucks' tech ambitions.

Starbucks also cited a broader restaurant slump for creating a "challenging environment" last quarter. The company reined in its forecast for the full year, saying revenue will rise between 8 percent and 10 percent. It had previously predicted a double-digit increase.

Johnson is taking the reins from Howard Schultz, who served two stints as CEO and built Starbucks into a global coffee empire.

Johnson inherits a company with "outsized expectations" for performance, said Jennifer Bartashus, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. Against that backdrop, the company's 3 percent same-store sales growth last quarter wasn't good enough.