Written Report Victoria Secret in Saudi Arabia Essay Example

stores and 42-page catalog, grossing $6 million per year, to Leslie Wexner, creator of The Limited, for $4 million.

The Limited kept the personalized image of Victoria's Secret intact. Victoria's Secret was rapidly expanded into U.S. malls throughout the 1980s. The company was able to vend a widened range of products, such as shoes, evening wear, and perfumes, with its mail catalog issued eight times annually. By the early 1990s, Victoria's Secret had become the largest American lingerie retailer, topping one billion dollars.

Beginning in 1995, Victoria's Secret began holding the annual Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, which is broadcast on primetime American television. The show is a lavish event with elaborate costumed lingerie, varying music, and set design according to the different themes running within the show. The show attracts hundreds of celebrities and entertainers, with special performers and/or acts every year.

On July 10, 2007, Limited Brands sold 75% of The Limited clothing chain to the firm Sun Capital Partners to focus and boost sales growth on Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works units, which provided 72% of revenue in 2006 and almost all the firm's profit. There are 1,000 Victoria's Secret lingerie stores and 100 independent Victoria's Secret Beauty Stores in the US, mostly in shopping centers. They sell a range of brassieres, panties, hosiery, cosmetics, sleepwear, and other products.

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 catalog 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 percent recycled paper from post-consumer waste.

International franchises

Latin America The first franchise store in Latin America is going to be open in Bogota, Colombia, in July 2012 selling beauty products and accessories. Angel's Group, the Colombian company operating the franchise, is planning open 10 stores in Colombia. Victoria's Secret is also planning on opening a store in the exclusive Multiplaza Mall in San Salvador, El Salvador Middle East

The first Victoria's Secret stores outside North America opened in Bahrain, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, although these are franchise stores owned and operated by M.H. Alshaya Co primarily offering beauty and branded accessory products. Caribbean

The Brand’s first Caribbean store opened in November 2011 at Plaza Las Americas in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Two stores will also open in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic at the Agora and Sambil Santo Domingo malls in August 2012 and October 2012, respectively. Poland

First Polish store is opening its doors in July 2012 at Złote Tarasy in Warsaw and will be operated by M.H. Alshaya Co. New Victoria's Secrets shop open in July 24, 2012. This will be the first Victoria's Secret franchise store in Europe, just a day before the new store in the United Kingdom. However, as this is a franchise store it sells just beauty and accessories, whereas the London stores are the first company-owned European stores and sell Victoria's Secret clothing.

Victoria's Secret consists of several sub-brands or collections (see

Figure 12). Each sub-brand can be said to focus on a central theme. For example, the recently introduced Victoria's Secret sub-brand called 'Pink" is a new collection of intimate apparel aimed at a 19-year-old woman (Limited Brands Interview, 2005), and the "Very Sexy for Him and Her" are new glamorous fragrance launches that build on its fragrance business. Each of these collections is offered in a variety of different styles based on the extent of coverage given by the bra, the configuration of the bra strap or even its entire silhouette. Finally, the consumer has the choice to shop by fabric type such as cotton, smooth stretch, lace & embroidered, and satin.

Overall, the products carried by Victoria's Secret Stores can be divided into 3 broad categories: Launch Fashion Products, Non-Launch Fashion Products and Basic Products. About 60% of units in store are basic, 25% non-launch fashion and the remaining 15% are launch products (Limited Brands Interview, 2005). Basics consist of products which sell all year round and have styles and colors which can be sold in all seasons and for the most part, never go out of style.

Beige Angel’s bra, white and black bras from Body by Victoria is examples of basic products. Fashion products are loosely defined as items with styles, colors or silhouettes which typically sell for one season (1 season = 6 months) and then shift to regular replenishment. Launch products are fashion items which are heavily promoted and may even announce the introduction of a completely new category. These products involve special planning and are typically launched two times per year, in spring and fall. An example

of a highly successful recently launched product is the IPEX® bra, by Body by Victoria® . The company also engages in about fifteen annual reconfigurations of its stores also termed as "floorsets". A floorset may or may not involve a launch.

Victoria Secret Saudi Arabia

When you see women in Saudi Arabia, all in long black wrapper dresses, you would not guess that, underneath, many of them wear fancy, colorful underwear. So these women in Saudi Arabia would seem to be a natural target market for Victoria’s Secret. Except one big snag: Saudi culture does not permit open display of lingerie in a store.

V.1 Problem Buying underwear is a nightmare for Saudi women. Since women salespersons are not allowed to sell in public places, stores that sell lingerie employ only male salespersons, and women customers must ask male salespersons for help in assessing their bra sizes. Once the bra size is determined, the salesperson would speak it out loud and an assistant would dig out the merchandise from hidden shelves. The whole experience of having to discuss their bodies with male salesmen is so embarrassing, that many women would just guess their bra size; as a result, a majority of Saudi women are reported to be wearing the wrong size Bras.

The solution to the Problem

Al-Mashat, the store’s owner did it is a lesson in creative trans-cultural marketing—marketing that respects a host culture’s mores and yet creates a trans-cultural experience for the consumer. The task of designing the store was assigned to Los Angeles based Chase Design. Chase chose the name Perdu, French for lost. Saudi Arabic women

are fascinated with France, and France is the country they most associate with lingerie. It also captures the experience of a woman who enters the store and can happily feel lost in the two-story store that features translucent glass and has a mysterious ambiance.

Because of the Wahhabi principles of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia, stores can’t show female body parts or pictures of women wearing lingerie.

So what Chase Design did was to use language and poetry in a rich sensual way. First, it created a custom alphabet, altering English characters to look more like Arabic letters and vice versa. This bilingual word mark appeared more sensual; and it bridged the visual gap between the English and Arabic letters. Then, it selected poetry and words that evoke the experience of wearing lingerie. In the middle of the store, a large banner hangs from the ceiling to the floor, with these poetic words inscribed in English: Wrap this beautiful robe of words around you and dream. Also hanging are many other long banners with words like “passion,” “love,” “dreams” etc., inscribed both in English and Arabic. These words also appear on signage, display cases, and even shopping bags.

Because of Saudi laws, Perdue does not have any female employees. Lifelike mannequins are not allowed so Perdu features abstract, fabric-wrapped shapes. And, stores can’t have mirrors in the dressing rooms. So, one day local religious police (called mutawa) came in and took down the mirrors in the store’s fitting rooms. But mirrors or no mirrors, Saudi women are enjoying this new experience of shopping lingerie—Victoria Secret style.

Multi-Channel Synergy While the Direct

division was extremely important, the stores remained the flagship for the brand, accounting for 75% of sales. For many customers, the experience of seeing and trying on the product was an important part of the shopping experience. A fair portion of catalog and web purchases tended to be for “replacement” purposes when a customer was already familiar with a product.

Victoria’s Secret also recognized that there were synergies to a multi-channel strategy. One study estimated that the average multichannel customer spent 2 to 3 times more than a single channel customer.

However, multi-channel synergy was complicated by the fact that the merchandise mix was not the same across all channels: the stores primarily sold lingerie, sleepwear, and beauty products, while the catalogue and web channels also carried women’s apparel. In addition, the company operated Victoria’s Secret Beauty stand-alone stores, which only sold beauty products. “The merchandise variations make it harder to achieve true multi-channel synergy with the stores on certain products,” said Turney.

Over time, Victoria’s Secret hoped to leverage its customer database to improve synergy. This customer database consisted of approximately 10 million twelve-month buyers, with around 5 million registered to receive special offers on www.victoriassecret.com. Customers’ e-mail addresses were merged with the catalogue database to create one cross-channel database. The result was not a complete merge, as Internet customers were sometimes difficult to cross-reference to catalog customers.

In January 2001, the company reorganized the Direct division database by customer, instead of by brand or channel. The database also included retail store customer activity, although it lacked the richness and detail of the catalogue database with respect to historical purchase

activity. In addition, the database did not include cash purchase activity in the stores.