Victoria's Secret target clientele

[AnnMarie]

Don’t get me wrong; I actually used to like VS. To begin with, they did a great job in popularizing lingerie and bring it to the main stream, often doing so in a very affordable way. I always knew that if I enter one of their stores I am likely to find something I like, and may even get it. Not to mention that during previous holiday season they used to have some really great stuff.

But I think they have recently shifted their marketing focus and are catering almost entirely to a younger crowd. Those cutesy cotton panties don’t do much for me any more, and the sleepwear is less than inspiring (OK Jenn, maybe with the exception of the baby dolls you spotted). Even their print catalogues these days feature bunch of pictures of teenage girls in a slumber party.

So when I go shopping these days I enter a VS store just to make sure I'm not missing anything. And sure enough, I really don't, which may make me want to skip my next visit to the store altogether.

Is it only me who feels this way? Am I just getting old? Have I become a lingerie connoisseur over the years?

Hope you'll prove me wrong.

[Kelly]

VS has added their "Pink!" line in recent years, which is supposedly targeted towards college students. The VS by my house has these "sexy" mannequins in the window, but as soon as you walk inside you are assaulted by cartoony colors and polka dot dogs. And it doesn't just appeal to college students. I've walked into my VS to see 11 and 12 year old girls browsing the Pink! sections. I don't think that 11 or 12 year olds should be denied fun underwear by any means (I myself loved it way back when) but it's just weird to have them shopping in the same place I'm trying to find sexy little things. In later years, I think lingerie in general has become a lot more popular and less "hush-hush" (I can find pretty things at Dillard's now, for goodness sakes! That used to be granny panty heaven just a year or two ago!) and perhaps appealing to a larger audience (and gaining brand loyalty from young girls early on) is VS's way of staying at the top.

A lot of the more adult/"classic" VS styles I do like, but I cannot find them in the stores, only online. I do think a lot of their bras look sexy and innovative, but since they don't make my size I can't buy them.

So... I don't know. VS has its place, but it's not the be-all and end-all many people think it is!
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Brevity is the soul of lingerie
-Dorothy Parker

[Jenn]

I didn't want to mention it but you said it yourself AnneMarie. Age, it has everything to do with age. While we may be older our tastes in the kinds of things we like to wear is probably pretty much as it always was but VS's marketing is aimed at the younger crowds with tons of money to spend. Today's youth certainly have more disposable income than I ever had. Television has been a huge influence with all sorts of shows that hightlight fashion and being beautiful as well as sexy. That's where the money is so VS is in the thick of it. Going through their web site there aren't that many things they have that I'd wear so I know what you mean about choice.
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Once a girl, always a girl

[Krista]

I agreee with Kelly. Definitely not end all be all. And not in my size either so I can stick with the underwear and sleepwear, but not bras. ANd for being one of the leaders in the mainstream lingerie market, they really should consider a wider size range. Anyway. I do think it has gotten really "young" as well.

[Kelly]

I think you can see the younger shift in their sizes, as well. At VS, I'm always 1-2 panty sizes larger than anywhere else. I guess they had to make everything smaller than the mainstream to accommodate their tinier and tinier customers.
_________________
Brevity is the soul of lingerie
-Dorothy Parker

[Krista]

never noticed that. haven't bought anything there in a while.

[AnnMarie]

Thanks for all your comments and support.

While I’m relieved to know that it wasn’t all in my head, I’m somewhat saddened to realize the shift in their marketing strategy. And it’s not so much about me getting older as it is about them getting dumber. They’re missing on a big slice of the market in favor of some trendy crowd that is bound to move somewhere else pretty soon.

[Kelly]

[Laney]

They have certainly been marketing to the younger crowd as of late.
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Fav's:
Lover's Lane for all your Lingerie and sexy costumes.

New Lingerie ONLY site: www.loverslaneintimates.com!!!

[spoyltone]

I used to work at Victoria's Secret. We had to watch a training video once about how to target certain clientele.

If a girl came in with her mother, we were supposed to leave the teenager alone while we target Mom to show her items which we proclaimed to be "trendy" yet "practical" and "young and fun" but "a good deal." And I'm talking about $50 sweat pants and $8 cotton panties here.

If a single man came in we were basically supposed to treat him like an idiot, steering him in the direction of the most expensive price points, regardless of size or fit, and proclaiming how "impressive" it would be to his girlfriend/wife. We were also supposed to point out that if it didn't fit she could just return it.

Oh yeah, and we had to harass everyone about getting a credit card.

This was pretty much the worst job I have ever had, because of what I was expected to do and how awful the management was. I know it is a business that has to continually grow but it certainly doesn't allow them to have great service or knowledgable employees. As far as I am concerned the VS business model precludes good service because they are just concerned with moving as many people as possible through the store and pushing as many extra items on them as they can, such as lotions and body sprays and candles.

Not to mention that they don't carry any sizes over 36D most of the time, and forget finding something like a 32D, let alone a 30 band size. We had to measure people and then if they fell outside the range we carried, we had to squeeze them into the wrong size!

The customers usually end up getting annoyed with the inflated prices and the unhelpful service and leaving, but some of them become loyal return customers, probably because of the constant free panty and GWP offers. I guess people just don't know of any good alternatives.

[Kelly]

[spoyltone]

I live in Nashville, and there is only one alternative to Vicky's that I know of - a small boutique that seems catered strictly to older, more conservative women. They don't have a lot of the gorgeous, really unique stuff that I drool over online. But at least the staff are helpful and knowledgeable!

I still shop at VS during the semi-annual sale. Their Secret Embrace bra is a pretty good rip-off of the Wacoal iBra, and they also have some designer collections (Chantal Thomass, Anna Sui) that get marked waaay down. On the last few days I usually go in and pick up some of the $12.99 bras and $2.99 panties just because they are so cheap and sometimes you can find some real winners.

It is rather undignified to have to sort through those tubs of mostly ugly sale bras, but then again, I have had great success there in the past. Once I found some Roberto Cavalli panties that had been marked down from $190 to $2.99!!! When I got to the register to checkout, the employees could not believe that they were still there. I also got a few Chantal Thomass bra sets that cost me only $16 total, and while they are not as high-quality as the real Chantal Thomass, they are very pretty. (I was in Washington, D.C. at a really large flagship store when I got those bargains, so I think I got lucky because it had higher quality inventory than other stores and I guess the people in that area didn't want to be undignified and sort through sale merchandise. Needless to say it was one of my better shopping days in a long time.)

When I find deals like that I feel I have taken my revenge upon Vicky's for being such an awful employer. It's hypocritical, I know, but I guess my love for lingerie overcomes even my disdain for VS.

But most of my lingerie comes from the internet. And If I didn't wear one of the "standard" bra sizes I don't know what I would do. No wonder 80% of women are still wearing the wrong size.