Early online success in the U.K. has luxury handbag maker Coach Inc. focusing on growing its digital footprint abroad.
Coach, No. 82 in the Internet Retailer 2015 Top 500 Guide, launched an e-commerce site in the United Kingdom at the start of the second quarter and plans to expand to all of Europe by the end of this year.
“We also continue to gain traction in Asia,” CEO Victor Luis told analysts, according to a transcript from Seeking Alpha. “In Japan, we’ve made great progress getting onto (popular messaging app) Line, and in China, not only Sina Weibo, where we’re one of the leading fashion brands in terms of number of followers, but also on WeChat, where we’ve also been leading the way.”
Coach, does not break out online sales figures, but Luis told analysts that more than half of all U.S. visitors to Coach.com visit the site on a mobile device.
Expansion abroad isn’t the only digital change Coach is embarking on this year, however. Luis told analysts Coach will continue to scale back discounts online.
Pulling back on discounts and, especially online, and holding to a full-price philosophy has been a key part of Coach’s transformation strategy that began about two years ago. “You’ve seen us put a lot of emphasis on bringing innovation to Coach.com as a full-price vehicle as well as to everything that we’re doing digitally,” Luis says.
For the second quarter ended Dec. 26, Coach reported:
- Net revenue of $1.274 billion, up 4.5% from $1.219 billion during the same time last year.
- Gross profit of $859.1 million, up 2.3% from $840.0 million.
For the first six months of fiscal 2016, Coach reported:
- Net revenue of $2.304 billion, up 2.0% from $2.258 billion during the same time last year.
- Gross profit of $1.556 billion, up slightly from $1.555 billion.