cannibalizing
n.— «More worryingly, the conglomerate is continuing its use of a business practice known as “cannibalising,” whereby new stores are opened in close proximity to existing branches. The intention of this is that sister stores will compete with and feed on one another before achieving total domination. Needless to say, in the face of such aggressive strategy, independent stores are forced out.» —“Starbucks and the British high street” by Anna van Praugh Telegraph (United Kingdom) June 15, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
The new Downton Abbey movie is a luscious treat for fans of the public-television period piece, but how accurate is the script when it comes to the vocabulary of the early 20th century? It may be jarring to hear the word swag, but it was already at...
Van from Washington, D.C., is curious about the word fluffle, which supposedly denotes “a group of bunnies.” A friend of hers claimed to have coined this collective noun for lagomorphs along with friends at the University of Alberta in...
My vague recollection is that the term was used in precisely this sense, including the Starbucks example, by Naomi Klein in “No Logo”. Please forgive me if I’m mistaken.