December 11, 2025
teamtime/Depositphotos.com
How Can Victoria’s Secret Wean Shoppers Off Promotions?
Victoria’s Secret & Co., known for years for its “seven panties for $35” offers and other deals, reported third-quarter results that handily topped expectations given increases in customer acquisition and full-price selling.
The 9% revenue gain in the quarter marked an acceleration from a 3% gain in the second quarter.
On an analyst call, Hillary Super — who became Victoria’s Secret CEO in September 2024 — said growth particularly benefited from buzz emanating from the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, which returned in 2024 after a six-year hiatus following pushback from the #MeToo movement.
Held on Oct. 15, this year’s show featured musical performances by Missy Elliott, Madison Beer, K-pop girl group TWICE, and Karol G.
Super, a former Savage x Fenty executive, said the show “once again became a cultural phenomenon” and enabled the brand to showcase its more inclusive “new era of sexy” positioning. Super said, “In this era, beauty is no longer a singular standard. It’s on her own terms, a conscious liberating choice.”
Streaming views of the event reached approximately 61 million, up over 60% versus last year. Victoria’s Secret gained nearly 9 million new social followers as engagement “soared” post-show across search volume, click-through rates, and recorded positive sentiment.
The heightened interest around the VS Fashion Show helped Victoria’s Secret’s bra sales return to growth in the third quarter, with market share gains accelerating. Super said, “By connecting emotionally with the customer, we’ve been able to increase regular price selling, pull back on promotions and execute select strategic price increases all while growing the bra base business.”
Victoria’s Secret Pivots its Pink Brand Back Into Position, Looks to Gift With Purchase For Growth
The Victoria’s Secret brand’s growth was also supported by a strong response to the launch of the FlexFactor bra, investing in more “bra-fitting experts” in top stores, and a focus on digital and social marketing.
The Pink brand, which is being repositioned back to its roots as a lifestyle brand for 18- to 24-year-olds driven by a social media focus, delivered double-digit sales growth in the quarter, with intimates returning to growth. Super said Pink benefited from a “steady drumbeat of newness,” including launches around back-to-school, Game Day, and Halloween events — as well as a record-breaking LoveShackFancy collaboration that was included in the VS Fashion Show. Super said, “With the right innovation and brand experience, Pink intimates can unlock meaningful growth.”
Gross margins in the quarter improved 170 basis points as continued strength in regular price selling and a pullback in traditional promotions offset the impact from tariff pressures.
Asked in the Q&A session of the call about progress on reducing promotions, Scott Sekella, CFO and COO, added that the chain has also found success using gift-with-purchase deals to offset broader promotions, while also helping lift higher average order value.
Sekella added, “As we’ve talked about, promotions will be a multiyear journey. So we’ll continue to find these opportunities to drive more regular price selling, pull back on full box promotions and continue to be more about emotion versus promotion.”
BrainTrust
Neil Saunders
Managing Director, GlobalData
Allison McCabe
Director Retail Technology, enVista
Jeff Sward
Founding Partner, Merchandising Metrics
Recent Discussions
Discussion Questions
What advice would you have for Victoria’s Secret on how to reduce its historically-high level of promotions and better drive full-price selling?
Do you agree that reducing promotions tends to be a ‘multiyear journey’ for many chains?
Poll
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The CFO is correct that reducing promotions is a multiyear behavior-modification journey, shaped by years of training customers to wait for seven-for-$35 deals. VS can learn from Gap’s Richard Dickson’s pivot away from dependence on promotions, and it should take a more purposeful pivot beyond the gift-with-purchase solution. VS can more effectively segment its customer base into full-price loyalists, occasional discount shoppers, and chronic deal-waiters. Treat your best customers with early and exclusive access (like Sephora’s VIB Rouge). Apply product innovation to generate reasons to buy now in lieu of promotions. Build cultural tentpoles that command full price (like the Fashion Show’s 61 million streaming views and 9 million new social followers) through influencer drops and celebrity collaborations. But the real test for VS is whether management will hold the line if Q4 misses expectations, and the board demands they run a promotion to hit the number. Can they hold the line?
If Victoria’s Secret wants to reduce its historically high level of promotions and drive more full-price selling, the first and most important insight is this: heavy promotions train consumers to wait for a deal. When shoppers come to expect markdowns as the norm, full-price becomes the exception — and that erodes margin, weakens brand value, and compresses long-term profitability. The goal isn’t simply fewer promotions, it’s smarter promotion strategies that preserve perceived value, reward loyalty, and reinforce why the brand is worth paying full price for.
I absolutely agree that reducing dependency on promotions is a multiyear journey, not an overnight fix. It starts with understanding which tools actually drive conversion versus those that simply accelerate demand at the expense of margin. Victoria’s Secret — like many apparel and lifestyle brands — should be testing alternative approaches: targeted gratitude campaigns, loyalty-based incentives (points, early access, exclusive styles), pre-sale bundles, and value-added experiences that don’t rely strictly on price cuts. A disciplined test-and-learn framework — where each promotion is measured for incremental sales lift, retention impact and long-term buying behavior — lets the brand build on what resonates while shedding what trains consumers to delay purchases.
In a nutshell: if you want to shift consumer expectations, you must retrain them over time through consistent execution, thoughtful segmentation, and offers that add value without eroding your price architecture. That kind of evolution takes time, clarity of purpose, and relentless measurement — but it’s the path to healthier margins and a stronger full-price business.
Branding is missing from the higher/full price equation.
Of course that will only work IF the product to start with is worth the price (in construction & design).
Stop trying to grab only the $15 crowd via disposable fast fashion mentality.
Create wardrobes.
Cover off occasion wear, as well as daily.
Investment pieces (under & outerwear).
Quality vs quantity. (stop being own worst enemy)
Talk/act/be a legitimate apparel company. It doesn’t work to chase a Shein audience & expect them to willingly see value + pay for value.
Wait…what? They handily beat expectations, and we’re supposed to be offering up advice? OK, here ’tis: keep up what you’re doing (and ignore us).
The same playbook successfully used by Coach to move away from discounts can also be used by Victoria’s Secret. The first step lies with product: great product doesn’t need discount to sell. The brand is already moving in this direction with much better innovation in categories like bras. The second step is to gradually rebuild price integrity – something that cannot be done overnight, but can be achieved btw reducing promotional cadence or by reducing the volume of product on discount.
The third step is “hold the line” by committing to the great product and price integrity practices. Promotions should be used to liquidate less desirable products. Immediately discounting new receipts only leads to devaluing everything.
Sounds like the article mentions all the important ingrediants for weaning shoppers off of promos and discounts.
Buzz
Cultural phenomenon
Engagement post show
Connecting emotionally
Steady drumbeat of newness
You could say that those are all textbook answers, but they happen to be the right answers. And I will add Differentiation & Distinction. None of the above happen with boring everyday product.
There’s another element of merchandising that I would add that is rarely discussed. And if it is, some people would find it blasphemous. My additional suggestion is:
Create and manage scarcity. Sell out of the occasional item. Don’t try to sell every unit to every potential customer. Create a little FOMO. Reverse the training that told the customer it will always be there, and maybe even cheaper the next time you look. With the access today’s customer has to market, the patient shopper has an abundance of deals available 24/7/365. So it takes a combination of Differentitation & Distinction and FOMO to retrain the shopper. And yes, it will take years of consistency for the retraining to take hold. The customer has had years of training to have developed the shopping mindset they have today.
Returning to its saucy core essence helps Victoria Secret stand out without overextending its reach and diluting its appeal. Over the past 6 years, the brand strategy swung from sexy to inclusive. Now sexy + inclusive appears to be a good fit that commands premium pricing.
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The CFO is correct that reducing promotions is a multiyear behavior-modification journey, shaped by years of training customers to wait for seven-for-$35 deals. VS can learn from Gap’s Richard Dickson’s pivot away from dependence on promotions, and it should take a more purposeful pivot beyond the gift-with-purchase solution. VS can more effectively segment its customer base into full-price loyalists, occasional discount shoppers, and chronic deal-waiters. Treat your best customers with early and exclusive access (like Sephora’s VIB Rouge). Apply product innovation to generate reasons to buy now in lieu of promotions. Build cultural tentpoles that command full price (like the Fashion Show’s 61 million streaming views and 9 million new social followers) through influencer drops and celebrity collaborations. But the real test for VS is whether management will hold the line if Q4 misses expectations, and the board demands they run a promotion to hit the number. Can they hold the line?
If Victoria’s Secret wants to reduce its historically high level of promotions and drive more full-price selling, the first and most important insight is this: heavy promotions train consumers to wait for a deal. When shoppers come to expect markdowns as the norm, full-price becomes the exception — and that erodes margin, weakens brand value, and compresses long-term profitability. The goal isn’t simply fewer promotions, it’s smarter promotion strategies that preserve perceived value, reward loyalty, and reinforce why the brand is worth paying full price for.
I absolutely agree that reducing dependency on promotions is a multiyear journey, not an overnight fix. It starts with understanding which tools actually drive conversion versus those that simply accelerate demand at the expense of margin. Victoria’s Secret — like many apparel and lifestyle brands — should be testing alternative approaches: targeted gratitude campaigns, loyalty-based incentives (points, early access, exclusive styles), pre-sale bundles, and value-added experiences that don’t rely strictly on price cuts. A disciplined test-and-learn framework — where each promotion is measured for incremental sales lift, retention impact and long-term buying behavior — lets the brand build on what resonates while shedding what trains consumers to delay purchases.
In a nutshell: if you want to shift consumer expectations, you must retrain them over time through consistent execution, thoughtful segmentation, and offers that add value without eroding your price architecture. That kind of evolution takes time, clarity of purpose, and relentless measurement — but it’s the path to healthier margins and a stronger full-price business.
Branding is missing from the higher/full price equation.
Of course that will only work IF the product to start with is worth the price (in construction & design).
Stop trying to grab only the $15 crowd via disposable fast fashion mentality.
Create wardrobes.
Cover off occasion wear, as well as daily.
Investment pieces (under & outerwear).
Quality vs quantity. (stop being own worst enemy)
Talk/act/be a legitimate apparel company. It doesn’t work to chase a Shein audience & expect them to willingly see value + pay for value.
Wait…what? They handily beat expectations, and we’re supposed to be offering up advice? OK, here ’tis: keep up what you’re doing (and ignore us).
The same playbook successfully used by Coach to move away from discounts can also be used by Victoria’s Secret. The first step lies with product: great product doesn’t need discount to sell. The brand is already moving in this direction with much better innovation in categories like bras. The second step is to gradually rebuild price integrity – something that cannot be done overnight, but can be achieved btw reducing promotional cadence or by reducing the volume of product on discount.
The third step is “hold the line” by committing to the great product and price integrity practices. Promotions should be used to liquidate less desirable products. Immediately discounting new receipts only leads to devaluing everything.
Sounds like the article mentions all the important ingrediants for weaning shoppers off of promos and discounts.
Buzz
Cultural phenomenon
Engagement post show
Connecting emotionally
Steady drumbeat of newness
You could say that those are all textbook answers, but they happen to be the right answers. And I will add Differentiation & Distinction. None of the above happen with boring everyday product.
There’s another element of merchandising that I would add that is rarely discussed. And if it is, some people would find it blasphemous. My additional suggestion is:
Create and manage scarcity. Sell out of the occasional item. Don’t try to sell every unit to every potential customer. Create a little FOMO. Reverse the training that told the customer it will always be there, and maybe even cheaper the next time you look. With the access today’s customer has to market, the patient shopper has an abundance of deals available 24/7/365. So it takes a combination of Differentitation & Distinction and FOMO to retrain the shopper. And yes, it will take years of consistency for the retraining to take hold. The customer has had years of training to have developed the shopping mindset they have today.
Returning to its saucy core essence helps Victoria Secret stand out without overextending its reach and diluting its appeal. Over the past 6 years, the brand strategy swung from sexy to inclusive. Now sexy + inclusive appears to be a good fit that commands premium pricing.