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Coach News
Fashion: Put me in Coach
By Sandra Jones
Chicago Tribune
April 08, 2007
A tangerine tie-dye clutch with a rhinestone closure. A snow-white ski hobo bag with fur trim. A royal blue python satchel.
This is not your mother's Coach handbag.
The 65-year-old maker of sturdy leather purses is pushing into fashionable designer territory, going up against the likes of Louis Vuitton, Prada and Gucci in the race to tap into women's insatiable appetite for chic handbags.
Just a decade ago, it would have been difficult to imagine such audacity from the old-fashioned company that relied on descendants of George Washington, J.P. Morgan, Mark Twain and other famous Americans to advertise its bags. But since spinning off from Sara Lee Corp. in 2000, Coach Inc. has found new life as a fashion icon.
Now, Coach is testing the limits of its cachet. Late last year, the company unveiled its highest-priced line to date, called Legacy, with some bags approaching $1,000. Coach plans to open two free-standing Legacy stores, in New York and Los Angeles, this fall.
Coach is aiming high at a time of plentiful designer competition. Mulberry, the British leather-goods house, is in the midst of a retail expansion in the United States, and Lambertson Truex, New York's hottest new luxury house, is rolling out its first free-standing stores and starting an aggressive expansion under new owner Samsonite, the world's largest luggage-maker.
"It's very dicey," says Allen Adamson, managing director of Landor Associates. "In luxury brands, you can go down, but it's very hard to move a brand up."
But Coach has been doing just that: It has been steadily testing higher-priced goods, rolling out more stores and unveiling new products every month. The strategy has fueled profit growth of 30 percent each quarter for the past five years and a 20-fold rise in its stock price since the 2000 initial public offering. Since July, Coach stock has risen 80 percent, to $47.
Just for fun, Coach sprinkles its most prominent stores with unexpected luxury items to keep shoppers interested and test how they sell.
In December, for example, Coach made eight alligator bags priced at $20,000 each and sold them at Coach stores in tony locations in Las Vegas and New York. It also sold 50 pairs of designer blue jeans in 15 select shops.
Pushing the frontier doesn't come without risks. Coach has the difficult challenge of balancing change without alienating its faithful shoppers.
"We have an extremely loyal customer base that we've worked hard over decades to cultivate," says Lew Frankfort, a 28-year company veteran and Coach's chairman and chief executive since 1995.
At the same time, Coach wants to win over the women who are wowed by "it bags," such as the Fendi B. and the YSL Muse, bags that command thousands of dollars and in many cases fly out of stores before they hit the shelves.
Coach became famous for its rigorous market research, an anomaly in the fashion industry where merchants are revered for instinct, not number crunching.
Last year, Coach interviewed 65,000 women on everything from shopping to exercise to consumer electronics. On top of the interviews, Coach tests its products in stores and makes changes within weeks if something isn't right.
For example, when Coach put its latest Ergo handbags, slated to debut this month, in select stores and asked customers what they thought, executives discovered that the drop from the shoulder strap to the bag was too short. It didn't sit comfortably against women's coats. So Coach designers are redesigning the strap before broad distribution begins this spring.
Another example: After discovering that its best customers visit the store every four weeks, Coach began to bring in new products to its stores once a month.
Even Coach's headquarters is oddly placed for a luxury house, on a gritty, obscure street on the outskirts of Chelsea near the Hudson. Its white, loft offices, sparse and clean, overlook the conventioneers streaming through the Jacobs Javits Center rather than the designers and merchandisers milling about the Garment District.
Coach is expanding its factory outlets even as it pushes into higher price points. It operates about 90 outlets (including one at Woodbury Common), compared with 280 full-priced stores. Roughly 80 percent of the goods sold at Coach outlets are lower-end pieces manufactured specifically for those stores, rather than marked-down merchandise.
Coach began selling jewelry last year and planned to introduce its first fragrance at U.S. stores last month.
In the next three years, it will be easier to find Coach. The company anticipates operating more than 400 free-standing stores in the United States. And it already sells its products in about 900 department stores.
The challenge for Coach as it expands is to balance its designer aspirations while keeping its broad appeal, brand experts say.
Coach made a niche for itself as an "accessible luxury." The average price for a bag is about $300, but you can own a Coach for prices starting at $138. The new Legacy collection, shown here, averages about $450.
The 50 best stocks of the S&P 500
By BusinessWeek
When it comes to anticipating fashion trends, many apparel makers rely on the intuition of a charismatic designer like Ralph Lauren or a savvy executive like Mickey Drexler.
But not the folks at Coach (COH, news, msgs). Every year, the New York maker of women's handbags assiduously interviews more than 60,000 of its customers through Internet questionnaires, phone surveys and face-to-face encounters with shoppers at 300 stores nationwide. Such intense market research has helped Coach executives spot trends well before the herd, and this in turn has helped it to extend the brand far beyond the leather bags that long were its trademark and into watches, accessories and clothing.
After hearing customers complain that they couldn't find decent carry-on luggage for weekend getaways, for example, the company in July 2006 launched its Signature Stripe travel bags -- a line that accounted for a hefty 15% of Coach's sales of full-price merchandise during its first month out of the gate.
That ability to peer around corners ahead of competitors has paid off big for Coach shareholders: Sales have grown an average of 29% over each of the past three years, fueling a strong 63% averaged return on invested capital during the same period. Such stellar performance was enough to earn Coach the No. 2 spot in this year's BusinessWeek 50, our 11th annual ranking of the best-performing companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index ($INX).
"This research gives us a real competitive advantage," acknowledges Coach Chief Executive Lew Frankfort. "The only way for us to grow on a sustained basis was if we evolved as our consumers evolved."
Dow Jones Newswire
Coach Cuts Corporate Line, Trims Forecast
Published: April 24, 2007 7:55 AM
Coach Inc. (COH) said Tuesday fiscal third-quarter profit climbed 38% as results exceeded the company's expectations due to continued expansion in the North American handbag and small leathergoods market.
The New York maker of luxury leather handbags and accessories said net income rose to $150 million, or 40 cents a share, for the period ended March 31, from $108.8 million, or 28 cents a share, a year earlier.
Income from continuing operations rose to $147.4 million, or 39 cents a share, from $101.7 million, or 26 cents a share, a year earlier. During the quarter, Coach exited its small corporate accounts business in order to ensure the company controls the locations where Coach products are sold.
Sales jumped 30% to $625.3 million from $479.7 million a year ago.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial had forecast, on average, earnings of 38 cents a share on sales of $617.6 million.
Direct-to-consumer sales jumped 29% to $481 million as U.S. comparable-store sales increased 20%. Sales at retail stores increased 15% and factory store sales were up 27% in the quarter.
In Japan, Coach's second-largest market after the U.S., sales rose 15% and comparable-location sales rose in the low-single-digits, as projected.
Amid an ongoing rivalry in Japan with more expensive European brands such as Louis Vuitton, Coach has been selling new, exclusive handbags in its pricey Legacy Line - which are also sold and advertised in the U.S.
Coach said that during the quarter results were helped by its enhanced Legacy collection, as well as its updated Soho collections, which featured Satchels, and a new group of Signature Stripe handbags and accessories, as well as the Hamptons Weekend collection.
During the third quarter, the company opened seven U.S. retail stores, bringing the total to 244 retail stores and 90 factory stores as of March 31. In Japan, Coach opened five new retail locations and expanded three locations.
The company said its new Coach fragrance, which was launched in early March, represented about 3% of sales during the quarter.
Indirect sales on a continuing basis grew 36% to $144 million due to strong U.S. wholesale shipments.
Coach now expects fiscal fourth-quarter earnings of 40 cents a share, up from 29 cents a share a year earlier, and sales of $640 million. Wall Street is expecting earnings of 40 cents a share on revenue of $642.8 million.
For fiscal 2007 ending June 30, Coach projects sales from continuing operations of at least $2.6 billion, up from $2.04 billion in the year-earlier period, and earnings of $1.67 a share, up from $1.19 a share a year ago. The current average analyst estimate is $1.72, which the company estimates includes 10 cents for discontinued operations.
For fiscal 2008, the company expects sales growth of at least 20%, to at least $3.1 billion, and earnings growth of at least 21%, to at least $2.02 a share.
-By Josee Rose and Candace Cumberbatch; 201-938-5964; josee.rose@dowjones.com and candace.cumberbatch@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
04-24-07 0755ET
Copyright (c) 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Coach vs. Louis Vuitton: Battle of the Brands
Posted Apr 11th 2007 10:48AM by Valerie M. Russo
Recently, someone told me that only 1% of all Louis Vuitton handbags in the world are authentic, which is quite surprising considering how many people, young and old, tote the luxury status symbols. I guess what most of them don't realize is that some of these bags are the real McCoy, while it seems a lot more are just reproductions. Several weeks ago, I posted Coach bags: You're just not worthy because Coach Inc. (NYSE: COH) was stepping up their luxury handbag game with a new, more exclusive line of bags priced from $10,000 to $500 and adding hoity-toity boutiques to bring in a more elite clientele.
While both Coach and Louis Vuitton (LVMH) (EPA: MC) already have classic and luxury goods status among many, it seems that both companies are grasping for the top rung of the handbag ladder. LVMH may seem to be ahead of the game, since A-list celebrities such as Uma Thurman, Naomi Campbell, Scarlett Johansson, and even rapper Snoop Dog often travel in style and are photographed with LV bags. In comparison, I can't even think of an instance where I've spotted a celebrity with a Coach bag. After a quick Google search, I did however find a picture of Jessica Alba holding a cute Coach Daphne Straw Top Handle Bag ($168), which surprised me because most women I see with Coach bags tend to be older and middle class. In fact, a budding fashionista once told me that Coach bags were "mom" bags. So then it's understandable that Coach would spring this new Legacy line on us in a not-so-veiled attempt to lose its "mom" status.
At the same time, both bags have made some considerable bad choices, as I see it. LVMH launched its Louis Vuitton Tribute Patchwork Bag, that sent the blogosphere running from: 1.) the monstrosity of its price tag, and 2.) its pure ugliness. The bag, hyped as a tribute to the brand, designed with the help of Marc Jacobs and priced at an unbelievable $45,352, had a lot of people shaking their heads in disbelief. In fact, most people I talked to thought I was pulling their leg. Oddly enough, all 15 of the "Frankenstein" bags sold out, leaving us to question the sanity and identity of these buyers.
Coach also made a bad move in attempting to upscale their clientele; consumers tend to be very loyal when they find a niche brand that speaks to who they are, so why move away from them?
If I had to choose between a Coach product or a Louis Vuitton, however, I would have to say I would probably go with an LV over a Coach bag, even though I have no loyalty to either. Even with the hideousness and silliness of their latest "tribute," the prestige of the brand carries on.
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