Retail merchandising: store design, display, and spatial organization

Victoria's Secret: Trend Report

Victoria's Secret has a quintessentially feminine atmosphere as a store, although male consumers may occasionally enter it to make a purchase. The store looks like the inside of a woman's closet, complete with white, ornate sliding drawers to hide ruffled, feminine underwear, cloth satin hangers on which various slips are suspended, and delicate pillows and sachets. The color scheme is overwhelmingly pastel and white, and the satin garments shimmer in the ambient lighting from above. Despite the fact that it is an intimate apparel company, the store windows of Victoria's Secret proudly display bras and underwear without shame, suggesting that while the store creates a sense of being in a bedroom, there is also a sense of joyful exhibitionism in wearing the lingerie. However, most of the items are not aggressively sexy, and as the name suggests, possess a kind of wholesomeness. This is underlined by the names of many of VS's flagship brands, such as its 'Angel' line of clothing as well as the store's trendier 'Pink' wear.

Victoria's Secret does sell some 'regular' clothing through its catalogue, but the store focuses on the lingerie experience alone. The store is not organized in a particularly coherent fashion, other than showcasing new merchandise prominently in the front of the store (as is typical with most retailers) except during seasonal sales periods. The sprawling, slightly scattered design of the store does suggest a 'closet' and encourages consumers to shop, seeking an 'experience' more than specifically looking for a particular item. The store's design encourages consumers to dig for the sizes they need to encourage them to linger in the store, and thus make impulse purchases.

A fairly typical mainstay in most shopping malls, Victoria's Secret is considered a mid-market clothing line. However, it is noteworthy that the company is often priced considerably above the most bargain-basement intimate apparel -- yet another reason that Victoria's Secret must sell an 'experience' along with its actual products. Consumers want more than a bargain at VS. Stores that do not sell strict necessities are also less likely to structure their stores in a functional manner, to encourage browsing and unplanned purchases. It is difficult to enter Victoria's Secret with the intention of buying a new, white plain bra. Doing so requires the typical shopper to sift through many different styles and types of bras. The hope is that the consumer will impulsively buy other items, in addition to the intended purchase. An even more desirable consumer, from the retailer's point-of-view, is a shopper who enters the store without a specific product in mind, and wishes to make a purchase specifically from Victoria's Secret.