USA: Coffee Lovers Around the World Invited to Bid on eBay’s Worldwide Trading Sites for Once-in-a-Lifetime Trip to the Home of Starbucks

Starbucks Coffee Company (Nasdaq: SBUX), the leading retailer, roaster and brand of specialty coffee in the world, is teaming up with eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) to give coffee lovers a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Seattle, Washington, to share an exclusive coffee tasting experience and lunch with Howard Schultz, chairman and chief global strategist of Starbucks Coffee Company.eBay, the world's leading person-to-person trading community, is hosting a special online charity event to benefit The Starbucks Foundation, including a rare opportunity to bid on a tour of Starbucks Worldwide Headquarters and its state-of-the-art roasting plant in Washington State.The trip to Seattle and Starbucks merchandise will be offered first on eBay Japan beginning July 11 and then later this summer on eBay's Australian, Canadian, United Kingdom and United States sites. A portion of the net proceeds from these sales will go to the Starbucks Foundation, a non-profit foundation founded by Schultz that expands the historical connection between coffee and books by focusing its efforts on literacy."We wanted to provide our millions of customers around the world the opportunity to come to our home in Seattle and join us in tasting the highest quality coffee in the world, which is Starbucks Coffee," said Schultz. "By teaming up with eBay, we are giving our global customers a chance to bid on an exciting trip to Seattle, as well as on some outstanding Starbucks coffee products, with the proceeds going to a very worthy cause -- the Starbucks Foundation and its support of literacy."In addition to the trip to Seattle to meet Howard Schultz, Starbucks is also offering a wide selection of Starbucks country-specific coffee merchandise on eBay. In Japan, which kicks-off the four continent Starbucks-eBay charity events, the offers include: