Frankfort explained that because the Coach consumer now purchases an average of 3.5 handbags a year, up from 3.1 in 2002 and 2.4 in 2000, there exists coach purses outlet a higher and “sustainable level of category spending.”Coach’s results back this up. For the quarter, Frankfort said sales in the direct-to-consumer channel — mostly sales at U.S. Coach stores — were up 39 percent to $195 million in the quarter, from $140 million, with same-store sales coach store up 17.7 percent. Retail sales were up 20.1 percent, while factory store sales rose 14.5 percent. Indirect sales, such as those at Coach Japan and in international wholesale, rose 57 percent to $144 million.“We believe [Huai Hai Middle Road] is going to be the new coach outlet online flagship center of Shanghai,” said Victor Luis, the Tokyo-based president of Coach Retail International. Luis oversees the brand’s business in Asia and travels to China at least once a month.Luis said the brand is seeing “strong double-digit comps” in China as it ramps up the distribution www.coachfactory.com/store network. When Coach ends its fiscal year in June, the company will have just more than 40 stores in China, Hong Kong and Macau. About 15 of those were opened this year.Coach Inc. delivered third-quarter profits that comfortably beat analysts’ expectations Tuesday as the accessories coach bags outlet brand prepared to boost its global presence on two continents.One day after disclosing ambitious plans for expansion in Europe, the company posted a 37.2 percent increase in quarterly net income, doubled the annual dividend rate to 60 cents a share and authorized the repurchase of up coach factory outlet to $1 billion of outstanding common stock by the end of June 2012. And as Coach prepared for the Thursday celebration of last week’s opening of a new 7,000-square-foot flagship in Shanghai, the firm said its first men’s-only store in the U.S., on Bleecker Street in coach outlet online coach factory outlet New York, would open May 7 following the recent debut of a men’s store in Japan.“Reed, like a John Varvatos, started his career at Polo Ralph Lauren. What they saw was a creative genius that kept his hand on the product. Everything had to be coach outlet stores approved by Ralph. That is very similar to how John Varvatos runs his business, and how Reed runs his business. There are very few people who do that, who are not a principal of a company. You can’t look at Tory Burch and say she’s a coach sale possibility because she owns the company.…Vince Camuto is a design genius, but he owns the company….It could be somebody from Europe. Europe has a lot of visionary talent. It’s a matter of who can calibrate to that and how do you commercialize that to billions of coach handbags outlet dollars,” said Hughes.For the nine months, income rose 12.9 percent to $539.4 million, or $1.69 a diluted share, from $477.6 million, or $1.46, last year. Sales gained 8.3 percent to $2.66 billion from $2.45 billion.Citing a further strengthening of its full-price business across all geographies, coach factory online chairman and chief executive officer Lew Frankfort told Wall Street analysts on a conference call that Coach’s performance reflected “the continued traction of the product and growth strategies we coach factory put into place this fiscal year.”Coach has begun a search for Krakoff’s successor, setting off speculation as to who might take on the role.The news of Krakoff’s impending departure had no negative impact on Coach’s shares — in fact, they rose 9.8 percent Tuesday to close at $55.55 on the back of strong third-quarter numbers. Coach reported a 6.2 percent increase in net income to $238.9 million on a 7.1 percent coach outlet rise in sales to $1.19 billion for the third quarter ended March 30. This compares with net profits of $225 million on sales of $1.11 billion in the same period a year earlier.