August 20th, 2008 | 
Author: Coach is the largest retailer of premium handbags in the U.S. by market share. Coach also sells accessories such as small leather goods, jewelry, fragrances, watches, and other items.
Coach targeted international markets.
Coach’s luxury products are priced at multiple levels, allowing the brand to reach a wider demographic than most luxury retailers, resulting in what the company has called an “accessible luxury” offering. Coach does this effectively by operating in two business segments: Direct-to-Consumer (through stores, e-commerce and catalogs) and Indirect (through department stores and other third-party retailers).
The Coach company was founded by Miles Cahn in the garment district of New York City as a manufacturer of wallets and other small leather goods in 1941. For twenty years, the company specialized in prducing these items, until it started a line of handbags in 1962. Miles Cahn was inspired by baseball gloves to produce leather bags. Bonnie Cashin, a fashion designer, created designs of Coach bags until 1972. Cashin changed the design of handbags according to modern sculpture, dyed in candy colors of pink, orange, yellow and blue, and lined with linens designed by textile designer Dorothy Liebes. With a greater variety of shapes, colors and textures in her “Cashin-Carry” designs, many featured wide openings or exterior coin purses and pockets.
As the popularity of Coach products grew, the company began to open its own flagship stores in 1970s. Despite their understated elegance and bags free of logos, sales continued to increase in the 1980s. In 1985 the company was sold to Sara Lee Corporation, a conglomerate with interests in baked goods.
Under the new management, Coach began to change its marketing strategy. The focus shifted from women to the younger lot. Sales boomed in the 1980s and doubled in 1987.
In the following years the company began to diversify its product line, adding items like silk scarves, ties and suspenders to its production. In 1991, the company announced its intentions to move beyond its roots as a manufacturer of leather goods to a broader accessories and apparel brand. In 1990s Coach launched ‘Coach for Business’, a line of leather desk accessories, leather goods and accessories for men, and luggage.
In 1992, the company started a line of fabric bags with leather trim, the following year came bags in trendy colors for its spring collection. In 1997, the company together with Movado, a watch manufacturer, produced Coach-branded watches. The company moved ahead to outsource its manufacturing in the late 1990s. By 2000, Coach was actually manufacturing only a fifth of its product line. In 2000, Sara Lee spun Coach off for over $1 billion. Sales reached $720 billion in 2002, and topped $1 billion by the end of 2004.
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