The Secrets Out: The return of Victoria’s Secret is gaining traction.
After several years in the making, the lingerie and beauty retailer – once seen by many as the epitome of exclusive – has rebranded itself as an inclusive advocate for women, And, judging by the statistics, it seems to be working.
Victoria’s Secret marketing downvotes include photos of pregnant women.
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“Welcome all customers” Martin Waters, CEO of Victoria’s Secret Lingerie, told analysts during Thursday morning’s conference call. “Our customer file continues to grow in 2021 as well. So after years of degradation, we added to the file. We are looking at a younger clientele with higher average spend, higher margins. And we’re also seeing third parties want to work with us. Not many third parties knocked on our door during 2016 [to] 2019. 2019. Now some of the best brands in the world are coming to us and talking to us about collaboration. And we know that when we have successful third parties in our business we get an incredibly high frequency of purchases and we also get high crossover with the core business. So there are proof points everywhere, at least not people [who] We know and love is proud of us again.”
Victoria’s Secret has rebranded itself as an all-inclusive brand for all women, including women of all different shapes, sizes, backgrounds and ages.
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The change predates 2018, a year after revenue at the lingerie brand (then part of L Brands) began to decline, thanks to changing consumer preferences and the #MeToo movement, which reacted to Victoria’s Secret’s unattainable beauty standards.
Victoria’s Secrets Love Cloud Campaign.
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But these days, Victoria’s Secret is an entirely different company — after L Brands split from Bath & Body Works last August to become its own stand-alone firm on the public market. The hyper-skinny model has been replaced with a more inclusive cast; The stores have been updated; The fashion show is gone: The board has been changed (now with a majority of women); Former head and founder Les Wexner is retired, and the product assortment includes things like mastectomy bras, maternity, sportswear, and oversize. There’s a tween line coming out this spring.
Buyers and investors alike seem pleased. Victoria’s Secret – parent company of the Victoria’s Secret lingerie, beauty and pink brand – disclosed fourth quarter earnings result wednesday Improvement in top-line revenue after market close. Investors were also satisfied: The company’s shares rose more than 4 percent at the beginning of Thursday’s session.
“The haters are gone,” Waters said on the call. that initial noise of [brand] Repositioning is far from being a dangerous thing. We just don’t hear about it. Social media posts are received overwhelmingly positive. When we first announced our position, we got a significant amount of mail from people who said, ‘This is terrible. You are burning the earth. You are spoiling our brand. We love like never before, why are you changing it?’ And when we took a closer look, all those people… It was mainly from men and people who don’t subscribe to the values we subscribe to.
“Are there women who were shopping with us who no longer find the brand attractive?” The water continued. “I don’t think so. We still sell provocative merchandise. We still embrace very sexy. Some of our best-selling items are in the collections that are the most provocative. Valentine’s Day is a holiday we celebrate and we Be yourself and we are shamelessly sexy at that time of year.
“But we can do other things too,” the CEO said. “And I hope you see that when we launch Mother’s Day in a few weeks, which I think is one of the best campaigns we’ve launched. So for us, it’s about a balance. Victoria Instead of the Secret brand being just one thing that’s sexy, it’s about Victoria’s Secret that the brand advocates for women in all aspects of their lives – whether it’s motherhood, that date night, company at home, Be it sports. Whatever it is, we want to be there for him in every aspect of life’s journey.”
Victoria’s Secret CEO Martin Waters said one of the company’s missions is to have “the best bra in the universe”.
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Growth drivers in the most recent quarter included sleepwear, beauty and bras.
“Victoria’s Secret has to have the best bra in the universe. That’s our mission,” Waters said. “That’s what we’re going after. [But] It’s not just about bras. We have grown a lot in pink business. We have grown a lot in the beauty business. And so the lifeline of the business comes from innovation and new product development.”
Victoria’s Secrets Love Cloud Campaign.
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Todd Mick, executive director of fashion apparel at market research firm NPD Group, said: “Victoria’s Secret has always been an innovator. They got some kind of sleep. But we’re really counting on them. A lot of good things are happening. Are: Specifically, their Pink brand is really committed to size, inclusivity and body positivity. We think they’ll be the kids to make a comeback.”
This spring, the retailer’s latest creations will include a partnership with plus-size lingerie brand Elomi, $7 million invested in female-founded businesses And a new, digital tween line called Happy Nation.
Of the latter, Waters said, “we see this as a very optimistically inclusive brand that fills a void in the tween market. It builds on our core competence. In undies and . [first] Real expertise in bras and clothing company, young people in the pink business, marketing expertise in that space. So it’s a natural adjacency for us. And we at Happy Nation are leveraging our knowledge and beauty to build a truly young beauty business that we think can be incredibly exciting.
The landing page for the yet-to-be-launched teen brand Happy Nation for Victoria’s Secret.
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Of course, the company is not without challenges.
Waters called sportswear, which he said remained mostly flat last quarter, and buy online, pick up in stores, as areas of improvement.
“We were late to the party with BOPIS, there was no point in saying it any other way,” the CEO said. “We really only got into the business during the latter half of 2021, where I think there are 450 stores with BOPIS capacity. This spring, we’ll be rolling out in all stores. So all stores in the fleet will have BOPIS capability. Its take-up has been relatively light. I don’t know if it’s because people in our category don’t want to shop online and in-store, or it’s because we only have half the fleet. I don’t know We will continue to make it work. And even though it’s only a relatively small take-up, it’s an important part of our all-channel, our multichannel of our go-to-market strategy. That’s why we are committed to it.”
There are also macro trends at play, including continuing supply chain issues, inflationary pressures and the current crisis in Ukraine, all of which have the potential to affect both business spending and consumer-spending habits.
In terms of increasing prices, Waters said, “It’s less about increasing the prices of the goods we already have and more about developing goods that are better than anyone else and, therefore, priced higher.” orders. And with that comes better price and innovation.”
He added that the company ended the most recent quarter with inventory up 35 percent, “thanks to supply chain delays coming to the fore and moving goods forward so we’re in a good position to enter spring. So.” We like where we are. It’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but we’re in a much better inventory position than we were six months ago and I feel like we’re getting on top of supply chain pressures The ones that have been out for the last year or so.”
Despite the success, the company guided its current-quarter revenue estimates because of continued supply-chain disruptions (which the company said would cost them about $140 million more in the first half) and the absence of last year’s stimulus checks.
But analysts don’t seem surprised.
“We remain a buyer of VSCO as we continue to track the fundamentals of the turnaround, particularly as it transitions back from mass air (90 percent air mix in 4Q) to ocean freight with high transitivity.” Struggles with levels,” Ike Borucho, senior retail analyst at Wells Fargo, wrote in a note. His firm rated the stock as “overweight” and set a price target of $75 per share.
Shimon Siegel, managing director and senior retail analyst at BMO Capital Markets, said: “While VSCO does not have a long history of stand-alone operations, sales and sales. [earnings-per-share] Beat guidance over the past two quarters and sales in the most recent quarter were ahead. We maintain our outperformance as VSCO remains affordable.
Originally published at Pen 18
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