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History Victoria's Secret was started in San Francisco, California, in 1977 by Stanford Graduate School of Business alumnus Roy Raymond,[3] who felt embarrassed trying to purchase lingerie for his wife in a public and awkward department store environment. He opened the first store at Stanford Shopping Center, and quickly followed it with a mail order catalog and three other stores.The stores were meant to create a comfortable environment for men, with wood-paneled walls, Victorian details and helpful sales staff. Instead of racks of bras and panties in every size, there were single styles, paired together and mounted on the wall in frames. Men could browse for styles for women and sales staff would help estimate the appropriate size, pulling from inventory in the back. In 1982, after 5 years of operations, Roy Raymond sold the company to The Limited.The Limited kept the personalized image of Victoria's Secret intact. Victoria's Secret was rapidly expanded into the U.S. malls throughout the 1980s. The company was able to vend a widened range of products such as shoes, evening wear, and perfumes among others with its mail catalog issued eight times annually.By the early 1990s, Victoria's Secret had become the largest American lingerie retailer topping one billion dollars.Victoria's Secret is now building its image with a fairly conservative, middle-class shopper in mind and avoids any connotations of sleaziness that lingerie might carry.The company gained notoriety in the early 1990s after it began to use supermodels in its advertising and fashion shows. Throughout the past decade, it has refused to follow the celebrity trend, turning down at least one celebrity a month begging to model the brand.Victoria's Secret makes use of a rigorous customer service model, stressing upselling, frequent staff attention, and signing customers up for a store credit card that provides discounts for frequent shoppers in the way of coupons by mail and free merchandise.
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