The Starbucks private sale, curated and hosted by Gilt, started yesterday and will run through noon ET on Saturday, August 7. The sale also includes a variety of items such as trip packages to the Galápagos Islands, espresso machines and coffee grinders, all at extremely discounted rates.
Starbucks Gold customers are those who have earned 30 stars or more -- one star for each transaction -- as part of the My Starbucks Rewards program. Starbucks estimates that it has more than 1 million Gold members, and says it will be using the private sale as a way to share exclusive rewards with these loyal customers.
Gold level members received an e-mail notification of the sale yesterday, which explained that the medium-bodied Galápagos San Cristóbal coffee is, "so rare that we may never be able to offer it again and we want you to have the opportunity to try its unique depth and flavor before anyone else."
From the looks of it, the flash sale appears to be doing better than Starbucks anticipated, as the $12.50 coffee in question is already listed as "sold out" on Gilt's site.
By teaming up with Gilt, Starbucks continues to embrace experimentation when it comes to using web and social media services to cater to customers. The early adopter brand offers free Wi-Fi in stores, has its own Facebook application for managing rewards, used Foursquare to grant discounts to store mayors and is a beta tester of Twitter's advertising platform, Promoted Tweets.
