So, just last night I saw a full-page ad near the front of a major fashion magazine (read: expensive ad!) for the new Cole Haan Zoom Flywire shoe – a mens “dress shoe” with Nike Flywire and Air technology. I need new shoes that are comfortable and stylish, and I love the latest tech wizardry, so this morning I went straight to the Cole Haan flagship store, right next to Nike Town, on Union Square in San Francisco. I figured I’d at least try on the shoes, if not buy a pair. And that is where it became apparent that this product launch was badly bungled:
- I started by looking for the shoes on the shelf – they weren’t there, so I asked a salesperson…
- The salesperson had heard of the shoe, but didn’t know offhand when it would be in stock, so they looked it up in their catalog…
- Or at least tried to – it didn’t even exist in their own, internal product catalog! Thus, they couldn’t tell me when it would be in, beyond “come back in the next few weeks and we might have it”, so I returned to my office and went online…
- Where I found that not only is the shoe “currently unavailable” at , but it were available, it is already on sale for nearly 30% off!
To summarize, here is how to badly execute a product launch:
- Buy expensive advertising
- Ensure the product is out of stock at your own retail stores
- Ensure your salespeople don’t know when it will be in stock, and don’t have any way of finding out, because you’ve cleverly kept it from appearing in the salesperson’s product reference manual
- And, just for good measure, make sure the product is both out of stock AND on sale on your own website
If you follow these simple steps you’ll ensure that you sell very little of your new product, get a strongly negative return on investment for your marketing dollars, generally piss of your potential customers, and possibly damage your overall brand – well done Cole Haan!
I almost hate myself for saying this, but despite their abysmal product launch execution, I’m still going to try to track down a pair of these shoes, and maybe even buy them – damn you Cole Haan!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
It is awful to hear about your experience at Cole Haan. Since this shoe was launched spring 09, they will not be available in stores. The product however can be located at a Cole haan outlet, if they were consolidated. When the product is sent out of a Cole haan stores they can also be found on websites such as zappos.
I hope this helps and you have a better experience at a Cole Haan next time.
Good Luck!
I’m not sure when this particular shoe launched, but as I note in my post, I saw a full page ad for this shoe, then went straight to the Cole Haan store – wouldn’t you think that if Cole Haan runs full-page ads for a given shoe that they’d make an effort to have those particular shoes in Cole Haan stores at the same time?
I do agree when a company has an ad for an item, they should be available.