Beauty Sales: $7.4 billion

Major Products/Brands: Bath & Body Works and White Barn brands include fine fragrances, aromatherapy products, body care soaps, lotions, liquid hand soaps, hand sanitizer products, personal care sprays, men’s grooming products, home fragrances, candles, and scent diffusers.

New Products:

• Bridgerton Collection
• Crocs Collection
• Stranger Things Candle Collection
• Cucumber Melon fragrance
• Fabric Care Collection

Comments: Bath and Body Works (BBW) net sales decreased 1.7% to $7.4 billion in the 2023 fiscal year, compared to $7.6 billion for the year prior.

In 2023, BBW achieved $7 billion in sales within the U.S. and Canada, and $340 million internationally.

As of February 2, 2024, BBW recorded a total of 2,335 store locations, of which 1,850 were in the U.S. and Canada, and 485 were located internationally.

In January 2024, the company reformulated its entire body care product lines to include cleaner formulations. Newly reformulated products include its Moisturizing Body Wash, Ultimate Hydration Body Cream, and more.

Ingredients include shea butter, pro-vitamin B5, coconut oil, and aloe. These formulas are also now free from sulfates, parabens, and artificial dyes.

The company also relaunched its hand soap products with new packaging and cleaner formulations. All hand soaps now come in refillable packaging.

The plastic hand soap bottles (with pump dispensers) are made with at least 50% recycled plastic. BBW’s first-ever hand soap refill is packaged in a recyclable paperboard carton.

BBW has also collaborated with Accenture to modernize, transform, and simplify its core digital and technology platforms. As part of a multi-year program, the company plans to elevate its branding and leverage MarTech, AI, and generative AI to drive growth.

With Accenture, BBW will deliver new types of customer experiences, agility, and performance. The partnership will build a strong digital core of cloud, data, and innovative generative AI solutions. This plan will help BBW accelerate profitable growth by enhancing operations, elevating the brand, and engaging customers through personalized and “seamless” experiences.

Bath & Body Works and Accenture are working to create a digital Fragrance Finder, a generative AI conversational platform to help customers find their ideal fragrance based on personal preference.

Looking Ahead:

For the fiscal year of 2024, BBW is forecasting net sales to range between a decline of 3% to a flat relative of $7.4 billion in net sales in fiscal 2023. The 53rd week in fiscal 2023 represents a headwind of approximately 100 basis points to net sales growth in fiscal 2024.

Beauty/Personal Care Sales: $7.6 billion

Major Products/Brands: The Bath & Body Works and White Barn brands include: fine fragrances, aromatherapy products, body care soaps, lotions, liquid hand soaps, hand sanitizer products, personal care sprays, men’s grooming products, home fragrances, candles, and scent diffusers.

New Products:

• Daily Face Wash
• Exfoliating Face Wash
• Daily Face Lotion
• Hydrating Face Cream
• Beard & Face Wash
• Beard Oil
• Beard & Scruff Cream
• Hero antiperspirant

Bath & Body Works Establishes Its Independence

Blazing your own trail isn’t always easy and Bath & Body Works (BBW) found that out firsthand in 2022. After having formally separated from Victoria’s Secret & Co, the first full year of independence for BBW saw sales take a bumpy 4% dip to $7.5 billion, in-store sales fall 4% to nearly $5.5 billion and online sales fall 8% to $1.7 billion.

A fiscal bright spot was international sales, which rose 20% to $339 million and accounted for approximately 4% of the company’s net sales in 2022.

As of January 2023, BBW merchandise was sold in 1,802 company-operated stores and e-commerce sites in the U.S. and Canada, and in 427 stores and e-commerce sites in more than 45 countries operating under franchise, license and wholesale agreements, with plans to open between 50 and 80 net new international stores in 2023.

Additionally, BBW expects to continue growing the digital components of its international businesses through web platforms tailored to local languages and preferences.

Endeavoring to better connect its stores and e-commerce platforms for a seamless customer experience, the company’s omnichannel initiatives were enhanced in 2022 with the rollout of buy online and pick up in store opportunities to over 800 company-owned stores. The company expected this number to rise to more than 1,300 stores by January 2023.

Market Report: BBW’s 2022-2023 Highlights

BBW is known for keeping its product portfolio fresh with a pipeline of cross-category fragrances launched about every 4-6 weeks. BBW’s men’s segment served up the company’s fastest growing product category in 2022, having grown nearly 50% in the past three years due to continued product evolution and assortment expansion, including new skincare and beard collections.

BBW also journeyed into new territories with the July launch of haircare products and an expanded Wellness collection that’s fine-tuned toward elevating customers’ daily wellness routines via curated products for the body and home. The brand also announced intentions to parlay its fragrance expertise into a new fabric care collection.

While working to establish its independent footing, BBW announced a flurry of personnel changes. In May 2022, Tom E. Mazurek was appointed chief supply chain officer tasked with managing all commercial product development, including R&D and engineering, and leading the company’s enterprise ESG strategies and initiatives.

In May 2022, Andrew Meslow stepped down as CEO due to unexpected health reasons. Gina Boswell, a former exec at Unilever, was formally installed as CEO in December 2022.

In April, Thilina Gunasinghe joined BBW in the newly created role of chief digital & technology officer to lead the company’s digital and technology strategy, digital operations, data and analytics and transformation. Maurice Cooper joined the company in May as chief customer officer.

And in July 2023, Wendy Arlin stepped down as CFO and was replaced by Eva C. Boratto, who previously served as CFO at Opentrons Labworks, a privately held life sciences company.

Looking Ahead

BBW has turned its focus toward developing products with customer ingredient preferences; by the end of 2023, the company anticipates that more than half of its products will be formulated without parabens, sulfates and dyes.

On the packaging front, the company is also testing recyclable aluminum soap vessels and has introduced the use of post-consumer recycled content in packaging across several of its product categories. This year it will be offering hand soap in large refill cartons.

Financially, the company said it expected ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty and customer price sensitivity in 2023. In line with company expectations, Q1 2023 sales slipped 4% to just under $1.4 billion.

Despite splitting from Victoria’s Secret, BBW continued to use the company’s IT systems, distributions and logistics capabilities. BBW has committed to devote approximately $300 million of its 2023 capital expenditures to investing in its own technology to separate its IT systems.

In Q2, BBW reported net sales of $1.559 billion, a decline of 3.6% compared to last year’s $1.618 billion in Q2. The company also said it expected fiscal 2023 net sales to fall 1.5-3.5% overall, with Q3 sales expected to dip 2.5%-4%.

Beauty Sales: $7.9 billion

Major Products: Bath & Body Works personal care fragrances, body lotions, body creams and shower gels; Bath & Body Works candles, liquid hand soaps, hand sanitizers and home fragrances diffusers.

New Products: Fall in Bloom Fine Fragrance Mist, Sweet Whiskey Ultimate Hydration Body Cream, Cinnamon Sandalwood Body Wash and Foam Bath.

Year in Review:

The L Brands name is no more. In August 2021, Bath & Body Works Inc. completed its reinvention by formally separating from Victoria’s Secret to become an independent, public brand. All things Victoria’s Secret—including Victoria’s Secret Lingerie, PINK and Victoria’s Secret Beauty—are now part of a new company known as Victoria’s Secret & Co.

For Bath & Body Works, the move has turned out to be a savvy business decision. Last year, sales climbed to nearly $7.9 billion—a 22% increase. However, that initial momentum has fluctuated. The company acknowledged that achieving the full strategic and financial benefits after the company separation will take time. The impact of COVID certainly didn’t help. Most of BBW’s stores are located in malls and other types of retail centers that suffered from decreases in foot traffic. The pandemic-related global economy also was pointed to as a disruption in consumer spending.

On the bright side, BBW affirmed forward-looking investments in approximately 50 new North American BBW stores outside of malls, offset by 20-40 mall venue closures. It also announced increased enhancements to its digital platforms and the development of omni-channel and expanded buy-online-pick-up-in-store (BOPIS) capabilities that better integrate its online presence with its stores to help engage customers.

2021-2022 Highlights:

On May 12, CEO Andrew Meslow left the company for health reasons.

In November, Bath & Body Works Inc.’s Board of Directors voted unanimously to appoint Gina Boswell as chief executive officer and a member of the Board, effective December 1, 2022.

Looking Ahead:

The company’s 2022 first quarter was not without its growing pains. Q1 sales fell 1% to $1.4 billion. As it progressed through the second quarter, BBW experienced declines in traffic trends compared to the first quarter of 2022. “Our customer continues to respond to our merchandise and our shopping experience in stores and online. However, our data indicates that customers, particularly lower income customers, have become more cost conscious and are limiting purchases and/or seeking out lower-priced sale merchandise as they are being impacted by the overall inflationary environment,” the company said in a statement.

In a July Q2 2022 update, the company said it expected second quarter sales to be down 6-7% compared to last year versus its previous guidance for a low single digit percent increase compared to 2021.

“Our business continues to perform at levels significantly above pre-pandemic, although we are navigating a challenging operating and macroeconomic environment with inflationary pressure affecting our customers and our business,” commented interim CEO Sarah Nash. “Our team is executing well, and our agility and clean inventory position allow the company to effectively adapt to changing consumer demand and preferences. We will continue to leverage our vertically integrated supply chain to mitigate risk and chase winners. We are focused on driving improved merchandise margins and pursuing aggressive options to control costs and combat inflationary pressures.”

To that end, the company said it remains focused with a growth-oriented mindset and delivering products that help drive customer loyalty. The company’s product pipeline continues to be full and on-pace for launching new fragrances in products every four to six weeks.