COACH Is Making A Comprehensive Adjustment In China From Products, Positioning To Marketing.

COACH announced that it will buy the high-end women's footwear brand Stuart Weitzman at the cost of the initial payment of $530 million in cash. On the same day, COACH's new store in Beijing's SKP (original "Xinguang Tiandi") also held a grand opening ceremony, where consumers can buy the Limited clothing series sold by only 40 stores worldwide.

"China's retail environment is becoming more and more complex, and consumers are choosing more and more." COACH Yann, the newly appointed president of China's Yann, admitted in an interview that "the plan has been done well, and only needs to be implemented step by step."

The outside concern is that COACH's new store moved from the SKP two floor to the third floor and made many neighbors with many competitors. What is the core competitiveness of COACH when China's luxury market is becoming more and more competitive?

"Innovation and transformation have always been in the DNA of COACH. We are transforming from an international accessory brand to a high-end fashion lifestyle brand based on accessories. What needs to be changed is product, store environment and marketing." Yang Baoyan said to China Economic Weekly.

In the past 10 years, COACH has been defined as "Accessible Luxury". This is a very clever marketing operation. Its subtext is "I am a luxury, but I am not so old as luxury goods."

So when LV, GUCCI and other luxury brands lock in the top 3% of the wealthy consumers, occupy the Pyramid spire, COACH keenly captured the opportunity of the middle market, which made its sales soaring, especially in the post financial crisis era, the company's revenue rose from 3 billion 608 million US dollars in fiscal year 2009 to 5 billion 75 million US dollars in 2013 fiscal year. In fiscal year 2013, sales in COACH China were $430 million, up 40% from the total sales in 2012.

But in the eyes of the outside world, this brand positioning itself contains market risks. When the location is similar to COACH, but the design is more fashionable, younger Michael Kors, Kate Spade and Tory Burch rise, COACH seems to be forced to a dead end.

In 2011, COACH was the highest brand in the US market with 32% market share. However, in the past three years, the rapid development of MichaelKors and KateSpade has made COACH market share Has begun to fall back.

Based on COACH Data showed that in the 2014 fiscal year, its revenue fell 5.3%, from 5 billion 75 million 400 thousand US dollars in the same period last year to 4 billion 806 million 200 thousand US dollars, excluding restructuring and other expenses net profit of 869 million 600 thousand US dollars, down 18.7% from the same period a year earlier. So COACH had to start changing.

The first is digging people. As early as the summer of 2013, COACH was from Spain. Leather brand Loewe has come up with Stuart Vevers as the creative director of Stuart. As a new generation of designers in the luxury industry, Stuart Vevers has served famous brands such as Mulberry, Givenchy[, micro-blog, Louis Vuitton and Calvin Klein. It is understood that Wei Fu will launch a wide range of new designs covering handbags, shoes and garments, hoping to change the image of COACH from head to toe.

Then in early 2014, COACH began its brand transformation strategy, and announced that its brand positioning was transformed from the "luxury of luxury" to "Modern Luxury" to enhance the brand's fashion sense and experience price.

While adjusting the brand positioning, it is also accompanied by large-scale internal reorganization. In June 2014, COACH laid off about 150 people worldwide, and announced the restructuring of the global store network and inventory. In the COACH home, North America, there were 70 COACH outlets.