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The Official Victoria's Secret Thread


Kevork89

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Victoria's Secret Should Stop Pushing Up Prices

 

Victoria's Secret parent L Brands Inc. is the latest retailer paying a price for trying to break consumers of their addiction to heavy promotions. The company's stock tanked more than 17 percent on Thursday after it reported poor quarterly results, for which it blamed weakening traffic at shopping malls.

L Brands warned comparable sales could suffer double-digit declines in the current quarter from a year earlier. Much of the pain comes from Victoria's Secret, whose February sales might end up down 20 percent from a year ago. The company suggested its sales declines could ease up in the second half of the year.

Don't count on it. I hate to break it to L Brands, but a big part of the reason people aren't shopping at Victoria's Secret is they're no longer getting catalogues and coupons encouraging them to do so.

Competition in the lingerie business is rising, with Amazon.com Inc. and other online players eating into L Brands's market share. In a bid to preserve its profit margins, Victoria's Secret is doing pretty much what Johnson did at J.C. Penney: pulling back on discounting and promotions for many of its core offerings. But that is leading to lower shopper traffic and sales.

On Thursday's earnings call, L Brands CFO Stuart Burgdoerfer defended the company's position, saying it wouldn't respond to sales declines by going back to spraying customers with "simple, not-brand-building coupons."

In fact, L Brands has steadily been raising prices, even as Forever 21, H&M, American Eagle and other fast-fashion retailers offer similar products at lower prices.

There is one bright spot for Victoria's Secret: Brisk sales of new, millennial-focused products such as sports bras and "bralettes," bras without underwire and padding that run counter to the company's legacy business of sexy lingerie and  push-up bras.

The sportier categories are selling well because they're in fashion with younger consumers who increasingly prefer more comfortable undergarments. But the other side of the demand equation is that, at $20 a pop, bralettes and sports bras are also much cheaper than Victoria's Secret's traditional padded bras, which usually run between $50 and $60.

The growing popularity of these new products is a growing threat to Victoria's Secret's business. Every 10 percent shift to bralettes from traditional bras equates to a 6 percent hit to bra sales and a 2 percent hit to total revenue, Konik estimates. If bralettes reach 20 percent of the brand's bra business over the next two to three years, then Konik reckons total brand sales could drop by 12 percent.

If he's right, then L Brands shares should be even lower than they already are.

Two-thirds of analysts followed by Bloomberg have lowered their 12-month price targets on the stock in the past month. Yet L Brands still trades at 14 times forward earnings, around the same multiple as competitors such as Urban Outfitters Inc. and even higher than American Eagle Outfitters Inc. and Ascena Retail Group Inc., which both trade at around 11 times forward earnings.

A lot of retail strategy comes down to the creative side of things, like fashion and fit. In this case, where L Brands goes from here is a simple matter of math and history.

https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/news-analysis/victorias-secret-should-stop-pushing-up-prices

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^^ VS stop pushing the Bralette as your only fucking bra, bring back decent quality pushup bras + sexy lingerie, drop the dead weight models, start shooting Candice, Adriana and Ale more, move Grace to mainline, bring back your catalogues, lower prices on your shit, find your next Miranda Kerr or Behati for PINK, stop with the repetitive lingerie shows (find a new format, new SEXY models and no more mainstream bands with horrible song choices that don't fit the theme the models are walking too) and lastly do something about your boring as fuck commercials lacking any kind of sex appeal, you do this and it's a WIN WIN.

 

How VS doesn't see the major issues is beyond me.

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2 hours ago, Limerlight said:

Hi luv :flower: 

Hello :smile: Long time no talk. 

 

90% of my bras are probably from VS, but for the last 6-7 months, I've gone in there and nothing has caught my interest. They have a few nice things still if you weed through it all, but then it's definitely overpriced for what it is. :idk: I like their bralettes, hell I'm wearing one right now, but they really do need to bring back the diversity. There's too much of this beachy/boho/festival vibe in their whole summer collection. 

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46 minutes ago, Prettyphile said:

^^ VS stop pushing the Bralette as your only fucking bra, bring back decent quality pushup bras + sexy lingerie, drop the dead weight models, start shooting Candice, Adriana and Ale more, move Grace to mainline, bring back your catalogues, lower prices on your shit, find your next Miranda Kerr or Behati for PINK, stop with the repetitive lingerie shows (find a new format, new SEXY models and no more mainstream bands with horrible song choices that don't fit the theme the models are walking too) and lastly do something about your boring as fuck commercials lacking any kind of sex appeal, you do this and it's a WIN WIN.

 

How VS doesn't see the major issues is beyond me.

 

Amen! I hope somebody working for VS reads this!

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7 hours ago, gotportugal said:

 

 

Kudos to Jasmine as she remains unscathed of all this, I remember her personality was a subject of critiques when she was made an angel but other than that..

 

What was the issue with her personality? :smile:

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:rofl: This thread is a treat as always. 

 

How long have VS' overall sales been declining? I feel like the last few quarterly reports have indicated that along with the fact that PINK/whatever they call VSX now/bralettes seem to be keeping their sales from being a total disaster. The article does make some good points, they should be lowering their prices, not raising them. A lot of their target market doesn't have the income to pay their prices, and the ones that do can usually find better deals and better quality/design elsewhere. 

 

They really do need to cut some of the deadweight Angels who are either past their prime or who bring little/nothing to the brand. But they're so stuck in this "more is more" mindset that I don't see that happening.

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