Starbucks to Debut Mobile Order-Ahead Function in South Korea

Starbucks customers in South Korea will be the first to use the coffee giant’s popular mobile payment app to place an order and pay for it before they show up at the store.

The Siren Order service allows customers to place their order through a QR code, rather than verbally.

Starbucks plans to make the pre-ordering upgrade to the mobile app available worldwide in the future, but is initially launching it at the more than 600 Starbucks sites in South Korea, according to reports on AsianTechHub and other tech news sites.

In South Korea, members of My Starbucks Rewards or the Starbucks Coffee Korea website can use the Siren Order service to place an order by generating a QR code that will also contain the details of the customer’s loyalty card and prepaid account.

The application alerts the customer when the order is ready.

Starbucks is considered a pioneer in mobile payments and has been aggressively looking at ways to expand its technology. The company revealed in March that it was working on an order-ahead feature.  Since that time, Square, a Starbucks partner, replaced its own mobile payment app with one that focuses exclusively on placing orders in advance of visiting a merchant.