every woman is her own hero.

Week 1.5

Hi everyone,

Here I am again with my 5th assignment week. This week I will talk about L brands. Like I told you in week 1, L brands is the mother company of Victoria's Secret. I will also tell you about some statistics, and where you can find them. And last but not least about the differences in The Netherlands concerning my product.

First lets talk about L brands: Which environmental factors have a major impact on the marketing policies of the company.

So in the Annual report 2015 of L Brands Mr. Leslie H. Wexner talks to all the partners of Victoria’s secret, Bath and Body works, Pink, La Senza and Henri Bendel. He talks a lot about sales. How they are reaching their goals and are well on their way of being the best specialty retailer in the world. He uses the term: Focused, Fast and Frugal.

And if you look at the Press Releases of L Brands the first thing you see are the webcast for their sales report and the Sales reports itself. They post these reports every month.

So if you look at all the date and information L brands let the world see, it is safe to say that they are mainly focused on sales. (L brands, 2016)

The last thing they are focusing on and have an impact on their marketing is the Quality of their product. There have been reports that claimed that VS and La Senza bra’s caused skin reactions. This is not true and there for one of their Marketing factors.

(L brands, 2016)

“FOCUSED: We focused on our top priorities and the goal for each … and just as important, we intentionally decided what we were NOT going to do. For example, we exited the apparel and makeup businesses in Victoria’s Secret – a tough decision, to exit businesses, but the right decision to put more time and resources into core categories. We intensified our focus on our customers … spending more time in stores … so that we can significantly improve our customers’ experience.

FAST: Speed matters … we further reduced our lead times and managed inventory well, increasing inventory turns. We made decisions faster … so that literally everything moves faster.

FRUGAL: We were more efficient in time and money. As I said last year, being frugal isn’t about cost – it’s about value”  (Wexner, 2015)

If you want to find data in the Netherlands about external environmental issues concerning you company, you can find these in CBS. I looked there to find 2 statistics, let me tel you about them.

So the first statistical publication I found is about (47712) Shops selling ladies’ wear.

Here you see data about value, price and volume of the Turnover indices, this is important to see because you can indicate what the growth is of ladies’ wear is in the Netherlands. (CBS, 2016)

The second statistical publication I found is about Producer Prices of 1419 (underwear)

I find this data very useful because you can see the consumption of foreign products and total consumption. This data is relevant because VS lingerie is an product that is for the Dutch database an Foreign product. You can see how in just 6 years the sales have  increased with 27.8% and total consumption increased with 30% (CBS, 2016)

And the last thing I want to talk about this week is social, cultural and religious differences. This might sound weird coming from a dutch girl, because we are such a small country, but yes! There are social, cultural and religious differences in the Netherlands. This is because we are a very multi-cultural society. We recognize a lot of different religions like Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and more. This means that there are a lot of norm and values about lingerie. For an example, the Islam thinks that you can’t show yourself to men in general except for the man that you are married to. But if you are a not religious woman in the Netherlands you can wear whatever you want. This is also an example for cultural differences. Because in some cultures it is normal to show a little bit of skin, and in some it is forbidden. These cultures all live in The Netherlands. A social different is for example the age gap. The elderly woman in the Netherlands think that we (the youth) are dressing to provocative sometimes, while we think that the elderly woman are too conservative with their lingerie.

Time flies! only 2 more weeks after this one. So keep tuned, and maybe I will continue my blog after my assignment finished. If you have and questions or additions for my blog, massage me and I will see what I can find.

Till next week.

Xoxo Renée

Bibliografy

CBS. (2016, 10 1). publication. Opgehaald van CBS: http://statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?DM=SLEN&PA=81804eng&D1=0-5&D2=22&D3=179-195&LA=EN&VW=T

CBS. (2016, 10 1). publication. Opgehaald van CBS: http://statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?DM=SLEN&PA=71934eng&D1=a&D2=a&D3=123&D4=90,103,116,129,142,155,l&LA=EN&HDR=T,G1&STB=G2,G3&VW=T

L brands. (2016, 10 1). L Brands, Media. Opgehaald van Our responses: https://www.lb.com/media/our-responses/our-bras-are-safe1/our-bras-are-safe1

L Brands. (2016, september 28). Press Releases. Opgehaald van L brands Media: https://www.lb.com/media/press-releases

Wexner, L. H. (2015). Annual report 2015. ohio: L Brands.