Victoria’s Secret is struggling with slumping sales—is the #MeToo movement, as one online research firm posits, to blame?
Certainly the lingerie goliath’s foothold on its intended demographic is slipping. According to YouGov’s BrandIndex, which measures public perception of corporations, Victoria’s Secret’s “buzziness” with women aged between 18 to 49 has toppled from a score of 31 in early 2016 to 23 this past April. Fewer of those same women also reported buying from Victoria’s Secret now than they did five years ago.
Neither of those revelations should come as a surprise. In its latest financial results, L Brands, which operates Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Works, and Henri Bendel, recorded a first-quarter profit of $47.5 million, or a little over half of the $94.1 million it earned in the same period a year ago.
The ailing performance led Loop Capital analyst Laura Champine to write in a note to investors last month that Victoria’s Secret “is turning into the Sears of brassieres.”