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Coach, the maker of luxury handbags and other sundry accessories, has been having a rough year. Poor sales prompted a leadership shuffle in July, and after a particularly bad earnings report Tuesday, the stock took its biggest dive in years. Which is odd, because the luxury market has been doing really well overall, fed by a global elite with assets that seem to have fully recovered from the recessionary dumps. So what's the problem?
Part of it is certainly hard-charging competition from newer brands, like Kate Spade and Michael Kors, that appeal to a younger audience. For them, Coach is their rich auntie's label, more 5th Avenue than Mission District.
But the bigger problem may have been growing too fast in the first place. Coach, under pressure from investors to boost revenue, added line after line of merchandise and dozens of factory outlet stores over the past few years, fueling a dramatic run-up in earnings -- to the point where Coach isn't really Coach anymore.
"If you're a luxury brand with outlet stores, maybe you're not a luxury brand," mused Tim Hanson of Motley Fool Funds on a podcast Tuesday. "They took a growth-at-any-costs attitude that has done brand damage that they are paying for, but at the time that they were doing [it], it fielded stock price gains because it allowed them to put up very heady revenue numbers."
It's a problem all luxury brands face, especially public ones: How can you both sell enough on a quarterly basis to make Wall Street happy while at the same time maintaining the aura of exclusivity that got you where you were in the first place?
Mark Cohen, a professor of retail at the Columbia University Business School, ticks off the companies that have fallen into the ubiquity trap. Bill Blass "never met a licensee he didn't do a deal with," he says. Neiman Marcus "has opened stores in the last seven, eight years that they wish they could take back." Saks Fifth Avenue "took developer deals 25 years ago that gave them the immediate appearance of growth, which was false." Martha Stewart, Ralph Lauren, and Barney's haven't done themselves any favors either by going mass market either.
"It's the designer toilet seat problem," Cohen says. "The luxury business is entirely contingent on limited availability, limited supply, and limited exposure."
In recent years, big luxury retailers have found a way around the problem by pivoting to Asia, leveraging their iconic status in places like Japan and China to achieve huge sales without tarnishing their image at home. Coach hasn't had as much success there, perhaps because it doesn't have the same kind of world-wide super-appeal of a Prada or Gucci. Hermes and Tiffany's are typically seen as the gold standard in maintaining brand purity -- compensating for small sales volume with really, really high margins. Privately-held Godiva has managed to operate on two tracks, selling pricey chocolates both in convenience stores and its own, super-luxe retail spaces.
Coach is also at a disadvantage because it's not part of a large umbrella corporation that can compensate for slow growth in one of its portfolio companies with fast growth in another. A lot of the luxury marketplace falls into a few big spheres of influence: LVMH owns Hennessy, Louis Vuitton, Veuve Clicquot, Dom Perignon, Givenchy, Marc Jacobs, Fendi, Christian Dior, Belvedere, Thomas Pink, Donna Karan, Sephora, and many more. Richemont owns Montblanc, Cartier, Piaget, and Van Cleef & Arpels. Kering owns Gucci, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, etc. Because they're diversified, they can invest in new designers, much like a big record label can -- or could, in better days -- take chances on minor artists on the off chance they take off.
"Between the moment they invest in them and the moment they will get their return will be five to seven years," says Ketty Maisonrouge, a luxury branding consultant. "If you look at most brands, what's successful today, they all try to understand what it is to make sure you don't grow too fast."
If Coach is to recover, Wall Street is going to need to let it ease off the gas pedal, make like Burberry, and realize that a sterling brand and massive sales are a contradiction in terms.
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蔻馳（Coach）是世界著名奢侈品品牌，主營男女精品配飾，尤以手袋聞名，但今年業績欠佳。7月，因銷量慘澹，蔻馳高層發生了變動，再加上本周二，蔻馳公布了令人失望的收益報告，雙重打擊之下，蔻馳股票大跌，跌幅創歷史新高。然而，在富有的精英階層似乎完全從經濟危機中恢復過來，並帶動整個奢侈品消費市場走向繁榮之時，蔻馳糟糕的銷售業績實在令人覺得費解。那麼，蔻馳究竟出了什麼問題？
攻勢猛烈的新興品牌自然是挑戰之一，如凱特·思蓓（Kate Spade）和邁克·科爾斯（Michael Kors），這些品牌更得年輕消費者青睞。他們認為蔻馳是富有阿姨輩的專屬，打個比方說，新興品牌就像是紐約年輕時尚的教會區（Mission District），而蔻馳則像是第五大道（5th Avenue），更為奢侈古板。
但更大的問題可能來自於產品初期的過速發展。投資者急於追求利潤的增長，蔻馳因此不得不在過去的幾年間不斷擴大生產規模並增開幾十家工廠直銷店，這樣做的確使其利潤有了飛躍，但這時蔻馳已不再是原來的蔻馳。
蒂姆·漢森是美國著名投資論壇「彩衣傻瓜」（Motley Fool Funds）的全球收益顧問，本周二，他在自己的播客中沉思自問：「一個奢侈品牌如果有了工廠店，那還能叫奢侈品嗎？為了追求利潤而不擇手段，品牌形象會受損，他們將自食惡果，但收益表上的數字確實讓人飄飄然，也帶動了股價增長。」
不僅是蔻馳，全球所有奢侈品牌，尤其是公眾品牌，都在面臨這樣一個問題：如何在保持一個令華爾街滿意的季度銷量的同時維持產品獨有的格調而不違背其品牌初衷。
哥倫比亞大學商學院零售學教授馬克·科恩列舉了幾個陷入「普遍性陷阱」的公司實例。比如比爾·布拉斯（Bill Blass），它從來不會拒絕任何一個授權方的交易請求；尼曼（Neiman Marcus）在過去的七八年間開了好幾家分店，而現在他們卻後悔了；薩克斯第五大道精品百貨店（Saks Fifth Avenue）25年前接受了開發商的協議，並因此帶來了繁榮的假象；瑪莎·司徒沃特（Marsha Stewart），拉爾夫·勞倫（Ralph Lauren）和巴尼斯紐約精品店（Barney's）此類品牌也未從擴大的市場中獲得任何優勢。
科恩說：「這關乎設計上的供求問題，奢侈品需要做到供不應求，要知道這個行業完全是依靠限量生產、限量供應和限量發行來運作的。」
近年來，一些奢侈品零售巨頭找到了兩全其美的辦法，即以亞洲為銷售重心，利用自身「品牌效應」在中國、日本等國取得巨額銷量，而絲毫不影響在國內的形象。但是蔻馳沒有像普拉達（Prada）和古奇（Gucci）那樣的國際產品知名度，所以並未在亞洲市場上取得多大的成功。愛馬仕（Hermes）和蒂凡尼（Tiffany）則是業內嚴守產品高貴血統這一黃金準則的楷模，它們用高利潤來填補銷量的不足。私人企業歌蒂凡（Godiva）則採用了兩種營銷模式：將公司生產的昂貴巧克力同時在便利店和自己的奢侈專賣店中出售。
蔻馳的另一個劣勢在於它不隸屬於任何一個大公司，因此也不存在銷售業績較好與較差的投資組合公司之間的互補。許多奢侈品公司旗下都有多個頗具影響力的品牌，如法國酩悅·軒尼詩－路易·威登集團（LVMH），該公司旗下擁有如下品牌：軒尼詩（Hennessy）、路易·威登（Louis Vuitton）、凱歌香檳（VeuveClicquot）、唐培裡儂香檳（Dom Perignon）、紀梵希（Givenchy）、馬克·雅各布（Marc Jacobs）、芬迪（Fendi）、克裡斯汀·迪奧（Christian Dior）、雪樹伏特加（Belvedere）、託馬斯·品客（Thomas Pink）、唐納·卡蘭（Donna Karan）、絲芙蘭（Sephora）等等；歷峰集團（Richemont）旗下擁有：萬寶龍（Montblanc）、卡地亞（Cartier）、伯爵表（Piaget）以及梵克雅寶（Van Cleef&Arpels）；開雲集團（Kering）所屬品牌有：古奇（Gucci）、巴黎世家（Balenciaga）、亞歷山大·麥昆（Alexander McQueen）、斯特拉·麥卡特尼（Stella McCartney）等。就像規模較大的唱片公司現在或景況好時，會在二流藝術家身上試試運氣，即使成功的希望渺茫。
奢侈品顧問凱蒂·梅森盧茲稱：「投資者從投入資金到收回成本大概需要5到7年的時間。你看那些現在很成功的品牌，他們中大部分都試圖找到規律，來確保自身發展速度不過快。」
蔻馳要想重振旗鼓，華爾街就應該適當放手，效仿巴寶莉（Burberry）的做法，並意識到品牌的高貴形象與巨大的銷量是不可兼得的。
（譯者 YulisaLu 編輯 丹妮）