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Channel Check: Coach (COH)

By The Channel Checkers on Thu, 2009-04-16 23:29

Over the past week, we surveyed Coach (COH) locations to gauge trends in the boutique retail market. We asked the following questions:

 
  1. Over the last two months have store sales patters/ foot traffic been holding up or have you seen softening?
  2. Over the last two months have you run any promotions on the products in the store? Which products?
  3. Over the last two months has there been a new offering or hot product that has stimulated demand? If Yes, what is it?
  4. Over the last two months have you noticed more window shoppers than normal?
  • 37% of respondents said that traffic patterns have been “very weak”, 57% said that traffic was “holding up” while another 6% said that business was “improving”.
  • 53% of respondents said they had not been running any promotions in the past two months. 43% said they had primarily on small bags and purses.  
  • 67% said there was not any new offering or hot product in their stores in the past two months. 33% said there was and all these respondents cited the recently launched (April 5) Bonnie Cashin designs.
  • 30% of respondents said they had seen an increase in window shoppers in the past two months. 70% said they saw a mix of both real shoppers and simple window shoppes in the past two months.
Conclusion of Channel Check:  The “very weak” response rate looks high to us and should give those evaluating Coach a warning signal about foot traffic into the Coach stores. On the positive side it does not appear that is a significant amount of promotions or price discounting at Coach stores. Bonnie Cashin bags appear to be popular but with only 33% citing them it does not suggest that the product line will be a runaway smash in April. Our data responses were collected from April 6- April 10.
 
For access to the underlying survey or for more information, please contact Jason Katz at 415.867.0959 or jason@thechannelcheckers.com.