Victoria’s Secret & Co. Opens Amazon Storefront

Victoria’s Secret & Co. announced on Friday that it has started selling 120 of its best-selling Victoria’s Secret Beauty and PINK Beauty products on the Victoria’s Secret storefront on Amazon.com. It's the company’s first major partnership with another retailer to sell its goods. The products, which include branded fragrances, lotions, body scrubs and body washes, are also eligible for free delivery with Prime. The move allows Victoria’s Secret Beauty to expand its product offerings and strengthen its connection with customers by going beyond its brick-and-mortar locations and e-commerce site.

“Through customer feedback and research, we’ve heard consumers want to purchase VS Beauty in Amazon’s store and already search for the product on the site,” said Greg Unis, CEO of Beauty at VS&Co. in the announcement. “This is a natural channel extension for us to continue growing our beauty business and meet customers where they are with the products they love.”

Total Retail's Take: VS&Co's move into essentially the wholesale business is something many retailers are experimenting with today. Brands that for years sold merchandise directly to consumers through their own stores and on their own websites are now seeking partnerships with big-box retailers such as Target or department stores like Nordstrom to help expand their reach and find new customers they wouldn't be able to acquire elsewhere. At the same time, some brands have pulled away from working with Amazon in recent years as they learned very quickly that partnering with the e-commerce giant meant losing access to valuable customer data and control over how their brands were positioned on the marketplace. For VS&Co., apparently the increased reach and revenue generation opportunities that Amazon provides are enough to outweigh potential concerns of losing control of the customer relationship.