The new sexy pushup — can sports bras become the new “push-up” gold for Victoria’s Secret $LB
With sagging sales of its push-up bras due to increased online competition, and a 30 percent decline in Victoria Secret owner L Brands (LB) share price, one of the tactics the purveyor of sexy women’s underwear is focused on is if it can recapture sales from the category that has been eating into its sales: the sports-bra. The $9 billion + sports-bra market has been growing at a steady clip, stealing from the traditional bra segment, and Nike (NKE), Under Armour (UA) and Lululemon (LULU) have all been trying to push-up sales even high (sorry, that one was too easy).
For Victoria Secret, which entered into this segment in 2014 with mixed results, the question is do women want to same from their workout gear as they do from their intimates. In true Tematica Research fashion — where we go to shopping malls to count shopping bags, check out which brand of sneakers kids are wearing on the streets of Europe and how often we see them — we’ll be very vigilant in looking out for the number of Victoria’s Secret sports-bras we see at the gym. It’s our responsibility to you the investors.
In recent months, Victoria’s Secret has ramped up its push to sell both sportswear and bralettes. In e-mails for the bralettes, the company assured customers that “no padding is sexy.” In a promotional video for Victoria Sport, various models–the same ones that show off the label’s lingerie–explain how hard they work out for their jobs as they jump rope, pump iron, and take shots at a punching bag while baring rippling abs and glistening with sweat.
Source: Can Sexy Sports Bras Help Victoria’s Secret Fend Off New Rivals? – Bloomberg
