Coach Inc. designs, produces and markets a prestigious line of handbags, briefcases, wallets and wristlets, shoes for men and women, jewelry, apparel and accessories. They also offer tops for women. Their products are majorly leather based. The company has been one of the best handlers of leather brands in the United States of America for a very long period of time. They have an extensive overseas marketing strategy and have in the recent years explored markets abroad. It has sold sturdy leather purses in unchanging traditional classic styles for a very long period of time. Coach Inc. has partnered with some companies for the acquisition of different licenses. The companies include: Movado for watches which is a global license, Jimlar for footwear which is only available in the US and Marchon for eyewear available worldwide.
Their target market cuts across all divides. For a long time, the company has been targeting the female but the trend has changed of late whereby their new market target is the males. The main aim for this shift is to change the image and reposition the company as a full range accessory maker and not just handbag manufacturer. This was a very good strategy and provided about 40% of the company’s sales. Coach achieved this by openning an only men store in New York City. The company’s major sales are derived from direct-to-consumer channels.
The company’s global market is also their new target market. This is attributed to the fact that they are carrying out an extensive global marketing programme which is aimed at boosting their sales globally. Several stores have also been opened outside the United States in order to capture the overseas market. The basic strategy for the expansion is to add the number of products that bear the name Coach and the number of customers buying these products. Coach has been spending a lot of time doing market research to carefully identify their main customer target. A lot of resources has been spent carrying out international research which has given them a positive result. They have an approach that is customer oriented and has enabled the organization to mount hands-on response to the recent economic downturn.
Coach Inc’s major competitors are Dooney and Bourke, Kate Spade, Gucci, Prada, Wilsons the leather Experts, Kenneth Cole, Hermes, Jones Apparel, Liz Claiborne and Polo Ralph. The major companies here are either owned privately or by other European conglomerates manufacturing leather luxury brands. Other competitors include: Louis owned by LVMH Moet Hennessy and Fendi owned by Gucci group. Another group offering competition here are the leather manufacturing companies which tend to imitate what Coach Inc is producing. Examples of such companies are Ann Taylor and Laura Leather Goods which imitated the Coach Inc’s products and had to pay for the damages caused.
I am very optimist that Coach Inc. will succeed because they have a good strategy to reach all corners of its market. This is evident just from the types of items that they manufacture and just from the powerful brand name that they posses in the leather industry. Their products are carefully designed so that almost every age group can get a taste of the products produced here.
