Is Coach coming back up?/What about that Bowery Turnlock?
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Ah, do you mean, how did I sell a bunch of vintage Coach to buy some LVs? Sure, I can see your point. I guess I was ready for something different. Also, I love how very lightweight the LVs are. I'm now saying what I did was right or wrong, it's just what I did. That said, I am digging my LV Speedys. There's something about that bag I adore. But I will always love Coach too.
I assume this is a bit of an exaggeration
, but there is seldom that big of a price drop when you resell coach, unless you got an extremely unpopular design/color way. There's also some stuff that I've been waiting for to go on sale, and it's been over half a year and it hasn't budged. I would also argue there's more complexity with selling expensive bags - you can either take the risk that some people will accuse you of selling/returning a fake to you, or you can allow resellers to take a massive cut out of your sale. Coach, on the other hand, if kept in good condition, you can lose a modest hundred after you've used it for years, or even keep it as a workhorse. That's not that bad a deal, IMO.Not all Coach products go on sale, and when they do, it tends to be the left over seasonal colors/prints. There are bags I have also missed out on that I would be willing to pay full price on. I don't make it to outlets, and I scour ebay, and even then they don't always resurface. My gripe with Coach is that they need some more refined styles with better quality. I loved it for the 1941 line and I wish that they would go more in on those. Unfortunately, a lot of people equate Coach with Coach Factory pricing, so they would never spend full price on a Coach bag. They would rather purchase something at the outlet - sometimes you get lucky with the boutique stuff, but otherwise it is to meet a bag fix (w/ trendier designs) rather than select something that they will use long term.
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I get the idea that they are official counterfeit products. I once acquired an outlet Kate Spade and could not believe how terrible it was. The leather and lining felt awful. But, there are others (e.g. the Bowery in this thread) that make comments like, "The xxx bag is now moved to the outlet." This confuses me. Are companies making inferior products for their outlets (I'm guessing Kate Spade does) or does old stock get moved to the outlets? Does it differ from brand to brand? Is it a little of both??
Typically a little of both. As I understand it, Coach boutiques put what is left of outgoing stock (seasonal, discontinued styles) on sale in Coach stores first, and whatever is left unsold trickles to the outlets. The Coach factory outlet also has a outlet-only line, that has trendier colorways, cross-grain leather items, as well as pvc signature items. The factory line quality is fine, but the main line has a bit better finish in terms of materials and detailing.
Well most of the time they have outlet styles that are created specifically for the outlet. But there are some boutique styles that start out in the regular stores, but then they decide to move that style to the outlets or they create a similar style for the outlets, and call it something else. Like the Swagger had an outlet version called Blake. That kind of thing.
And lastly they use the outlets to sell regular merchandise when they are about done with it, have excess, etc.
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. If you hop over to the LV forum you will see posts about quality issues, but I feel like that isn’t the norm for LV. There’s thousands of people that are using their items without issue that are simply just not writing about their experience.
I’ve purchased pre-loved LV leather that was 20 years old and looked amazing. I recently purchased a canvas agenda that’s a decade old and still perfect. I have new items that I throw around constantly and still in perfect shape.
You’re right when you say LV resale is great, I’ve broken even on 4 plus year old items and even made a profit with a couple.
But I think LV ages great and can stand the rest of time. Not saying Coach can’t either.
I use to love Coach leather and a had a few bags that I would use consistently.
I guess over the years I just fell out of love and moved over to LV/Chanel. But, I have nothing bad to say about Coach’s quality at all. They were really nice bags.
For coach, It's both.
the defect items, returned worn items and the ones couldn't sell after several seasons are sent to coach outlet stores. it's called retail deletes. that's originally the outlet store meant to be.
But in reality, to maintain a outlet store only by the retail deletes is impossible, so they have these made for factory (MFF) bags. they are different designs than retail store, or re-use the designs that retail store no longer carry. in order to sell at a discounted price, they are made by cheaper material (cheaper leather, cheaper hardware) that's how it works. if you walk into a coach outlet, normally they have only one shelf of deletes and the entire store is full of MFF products. you can simply ask where the retail deletes are, if you can't distinguish them.
Same story for Kate Spade, and Michael Kors outlets.
But different in Tory Burch outlet stores. Tory Burch outlet store generally speaking doesn't carry any retail deletes. They re-use the exact same design from retail store (of course the design that's no longer sold in retail) but made in cheaper materials. It's really hard to tell the difference from appearance, unless you have a retail bag to compare the quality.
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Yes, me too!
The flower turnlock is the reason I keep this Bowery bag. So far it's only used on Parker , camera bag and Bowery, they are all non-1941 styles.
I fully understand your point of "do not buy the brands that their sales strategy cheapen their brand image", and my point is "pay for the bag, not the brand" as long as it's in good quality and the price justifies it, I don't care what the brand is. Especially the new coach bags doesn't have their brand logo on the bag, it's not easy to tell which brand they are unless you are familiar with coach products.
I never bought LV bag, my husband gifted me a canvas LV bag that priced over 2K, I returned it to the store immediately, as I think it was waste of money. I don't want to pay for the brand name. without the brand, that canvas bag may only worth $500 at maximum. some Chinese counterfeit can do the same quality of retail LV bags, and sold for around $100-$200 (I am talking about these real good quality counterfeits, not the bad ones that you can spot fake easily which is sold less than $50 ), that's the real cost of making the same bag, if LV is made in China. and that's why there are so many fake LV bags.
Till now, My coach collection costed my over 6K, The most expensive coach bag I bought is in my avatar, I paid $1500 full price in retail store and I've never seen this bag gets discounted or send to outlet. I know there isn't good counterfeit of this bag either, as making a similar bag will cost about the same of what I paid for.
Every time I carry this bag, I enjoy the craftsmanship and the look & functionality, I know my money I paid for the bag is well worth it. that makes me happy. that's what I pay for.
I've owned many vintage Coach bags, and while their leather is beautiful they in no way compare to the higher end LV leather bags like the Sofia Coppola or Cappucines bags. That being said the Coach bags also didn't cost 4 to 6k.
I could kick myself - I sent over twenty vintage Coach bags to goodwill around ten years ago.
You don't know how awesome Coach is if you never bought anything older than 10 years. 10 years ago, classic Coach styles were made with inferior leather. 20 years ago, the leather was the most amazing that leather could be. I have Coach bags that are 50 years old and still in great condition. There aren't many brands that can survive that long without wearing out. I've never had my hands on a vintage LV but I've seen many with cracking and stained vachetta. I can appreciate that people like them because they are lightweight and fairly worry-free, but they aren't my aesthetic and I'll always want leather.Ok, I realize I am in the wrong forum. But wut? I like classic coach glove tanned leather bags (the ones they used to sell 10 years ago or something - that’s closest I’ve gotten to vintage coach). They’re the only coach bags I like at all and I will always keep them in my bag collection. I’m very picky about bags so that’s saying a lot. But they are not even remotely as awesome as LV canvas bags. I can’t even imagine how you can think the reverse.
Vintage LV canvas is freaking amazing. It's indestructible. I have a 30 year old Saumur 43 that will look the same in another 30 years I can't say the same for my 25 year old Coach duffles although they are great too.
Why don't you think your 25 year old duffles with look good in another 30 years?
Yes, I refused to buy Coach for over a decade because of the outlet/sale situation. I came back for the 1941 and have really enjoyed some of those bags, but they definitely have a bad reputation with many due to the factory store products there's no getting around it.
Gucci's been having a good three years, and yet you still hear/see the comments about their outlets/sales.