The Marketing

Marketing Strategy

Victoria's secret is a specialty retailer of women's intimate apparel. It has about 1,000 Victoria's Secret lingerie stores and 100 stand-alone Victoria's Secret Beauty Stores in the US, mostly mall-based. It sells bras, panties, hosiery, beauty products, sleepwear, and more. Victoria's Secret mails more than 400 million of its catalogs per year. Under pressure from environmentalist groups, Victoria's Secret's parent firm and a conservation group have reached an agreement to make the lingerie retailer's catalog more environmentally friendly in 2006. The catalogue will no longer be made of pulp supplied from any woodland caribou habitat range in Canada, unless it has been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. The catalogs will also be made of 10 per cent recycled paper from post-consumer waste.
Victoria's Secret is now building its image with a fairly conservative, middle-class shopper in mind and avoided any connotations of sleaziness which lingerie might carry.

You might be puzzled what really is the secret of Victoria’s Secret? The answer to that is no less than caused by its efficient multiple channels of product promotions and their brand marketing. Records have shown that it has roughly 1,500 shops worldwide, a first-rate directory and a most visited website developed in 1998. Due to its thorough expansion, it has now improved its merchandise to include beauty cosmetics, fashion, and even accessories. The business involves three factions: Victoria’s Secret Stores, Victoria’s Secret Direct facilitating the catalogue and internet promotions, and the Victoria’s Secret Beauty which handles the make-up and bath products.

Women’s Fashion Hub
With the growing enthusiasm of women with their merchandise, the strategy selected by Victoria’s Secret is always to aim for the brand loyalty of their patrons. Brand recognition is everything today, and so they made it a point that their clients would easily evoke that Victoria’s Secret is the most spectacular brand in the market. They have successfully achieved such brand loyalty by abiding to the concept of uniqueness which consumers highly regard nowadays due to the increasing similarity in product offers of different brands.
They managed to exude a poised ambiance in their shops by making a point that it’s furnished in a bedroom style which definitely appeals to be homey for the customers as if alluring them to come back to the store. This comes together with the continuously innovating lingerie flair displayed by attractive models with images captured by only the best photographers in the country.
Victoria’s Secret industry surely generated its own fashion trend as it deviated from the generic styles and fit using new fabrics and laces which not only serves its purpose of comfort but also fashion.
Needless to say, due to its prominence in the fashion world, it has been deemed as a woman’s dream brand, serving as the yardstick of what is palatable for most of the women nowadays. Similarly in the manner how it started, the prestige it has been enduring still hasn’t stopped them for aiming for expansion. This has been materialized as they religiously organize multiple brand-building events such as their annual fashion shows which imbued to their patrons how fashionable their merchandise were eventually increasing the percentage of brand loyalty each year.

The marketing mix

Place:
Victoria's Secret has about 1,000 lingerie stores and 100 stand-alone Victoria's Secret Beauty Stores in the US, mostly mall-based.

Promotion:
Victoria's Secret diversified its advertising strategy in 1998 from just window displays and catalog distribution to a full-on media assault with commercials that aired on national television 40 weeks a year. Victoria's Secret also hosted an Internet fashion show in January 1999 that proved so popular, attracting one billion viewers, that many who tried to access the event online got locked out. (bron: http://www.answers.com/topic/women-s-accessory-and-specialty-stores)

Product:
Sexy. Glamorous. Innovative. Victoria's Secret is the leading specialty retailer of lingerie and beauty products, dominating its world with modern, fashion-inspired collections, prestige fragrances and cosmetics, celebrated supermodels and world-famous runway shows.

Price:

employees:


Marketing facts

Edginess is what Victoria's Secret fans like, says retail consultant Candace Corlett of WSL Strategic Retail. "Good for them for smart marketing," she says. And, in responding to the outcry, "good for them for having a conscience."
(bron: http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2005-10-09-victorias-secret_x.htm)

VS offers a paper catalog as well as a website.
Victoria's Secret went on-line December 4, 1998, and sales increased 100 percent monthly, with 40 percent new customers who had not bought the Victoria's Secret brand previously. Moreover, selling over the Internet upped the number of male customers to 30 percent from 10 percent for store and catalog sales. Apparently, the Internet fulfilled Raymond's original concept of appealing to men, offering more comfort than Victoria's Secret stores or its catalog.
(bron: http://www.answers.com/topic/women-s-accessory-and-specialty-stores)