Victoria Secrets - Lingerie and Beauty Products

Executive Summary

Victoria's Secret is a retail brand of lingerie and beauty products, owned and run by the Limited Brands Company. Victoria’s Secret generates more than four billion in sales a year. It is the fastest growing subsidiary of Limited Brands and contributes forty two percent of corporate profits. More than one thousand Victoria's Secret retail stores are open in the United States. Products are also available through the catalogue and online business. Victoria's Secret Direct, an online base store, has sales of approximately nine hundred million. The catalog is well integrated with this distribution channel as well. A click on Catalogue Quick Order (which used to be called "Shop the Catalogue") allows one to choose a recent catalog and browse its pages as with the hardcopy. Unlike the paper version, however, the online catalog allows the user to select, enlarge, size and buy at the click of a mouse. What you do beyond that, with the print or online version is entirely up to the individual.

As sales have grown, it has become obvious that Victoria’s Secret needs larger stores. They have tested larger store formats over the past several years and have found that the stores have achieved attractive returns. They are resizing the average Victoria's Secret store by about fifty percent. In 2007, they increased the stores by eight to ten percent in about a hundred and fifty of the project category expansions. They added new segments to other stores and also added the amazing successes of the new department called PINK, beauty growth, and growth in Intimissimi. The Victoria's Secret Direct channel (internet and catalogue) has had phenomenal year in its growth periods, and significant increase in operating income.

Victoria's Secret has developed a superb customer-focused marketing tool-at both strategic and operational levels-that is undoubtedly a benchmark for its lingerie category. Its brand focuses on a lifestyle that teases, shocks, and woos our deepest feelings. Far from lagging behind the stores and catalogs, the e-shop is nicely integrated with the other distribution channels and reinforces the brand presence in a sizable fashion for all types of bodies and ages.

Background

Roy Raymond established Victoria's Secret in the San Francisco in 1970. Roy wanted a cozy and inviting atmosphere for his store, which would be comfortable for all and created the image of a Victorian boudoir. In 1982, he sold his catalogue operation and three stores to the Limited, now operating as Limited Brands.

In the beginning Victoria's Secret’s has seen an astounding growth rate, with annual sales exceeding $3 billion by the late 1990s. In 1998 a survey rated it as ninth in the nations for most recognized brand and the company's name has grown to be comparable with romantic and stylish