Coach’s own website describes its coffee shops like this: “A hotspot for community. There’s no better place to meet up (and snap pics). Come share the love.” It’s warm, it’s very on-brand, and it’s not really why this works.
Here’s what’s actually happening. Every Coach coffee shop is attached to a Coach handbag store. Order a latte and the register sits exactly where the bag displays are — you’re standing three feet from a $350–$450 handbag for the price of a $6 coffee. CNBC’s reporting on the rollout puts the effect at double- to triple-digit sales increases, storewide, at stores that add a coffee shop.
And Coach isn’t alone. Ralph Lauren has run Ralph’s Coffee since 2014 — more than 40 locations now, from a corner of its Madison Avenue flagship to Hong Kong and Barcelona. Prada just opened its first Southeast Asian café, at Ion Orchard in Singapore. Uniqlo built a coffee bar into the second floor of its New York flagship. Three very different luxury and lifestyle brands, converging on the identical retail tactic within a few years of each other. That’s not a coincidence.
