In its fourth quarter 2025 earnings results published on Wednesday, Bath & Body Works reported a 2% decline in net sales to $2.7 billion. As part of its Consumer First Formula turnaround plan announced in November, the Ohio-based personal care company is implementing new strategies to reinvigorate consumers in a competitive market. That includes modernizing its packaging and formulations to keep up with new demands.
“We know stronger quality messaging is critical to attract new, younger consumers, and it is already being rolled out across all touch points, including our stores, digital platforms and our product label,” said CEO Daniel Heaf. Certain product lines like body wash and hand sanitizers are receiving new vessels, and the company is rolling out new messaging on packaging that emphasizes ingredient transparency and highlights benefits such as 48-hour moisture and dermatologist-approved claims.
Bath & Body Works is also increasing its fragrance concentrations in its core scent collections as consumers demand more powerful, longer-lasting fragrances.
In the online channel, the company will boost its relationships with content creators in an effort to reach the 25- to 30-year-old female demographic.
“We expect to see a roughly tenfold increase in how we leverage content … so we can show up in social media in a way that is modern and relevant,” said Heaf. “We’re really looking for those thousands of influencers that we recruit to be posting their content about our product and our brand, in their voice, because we know [what works] from having seen this playbook run with other competitors.”
The company is also updating its distribution channel to meet customers where they’re at, including launching on Amazon in February. Heaf declined to share initial sales figures from Amazon, but shared that Bath & Body Works has lowered its own free shipping threshold from $100 to $50 to remain competitive with other speciality retailers.
“As we learn more from our Amazon launch, we are evaluating additional opportunities to extend our distribution further in strategic and brand accretive ways. In parallel, we are elevating our own digital experience with a focus on reducing friction and improving the customer experience through clearer product navigation, stronger storytelling and a more intuitive and modern shopping experience,” said Heaf. “We know consumers often go to Amazon to purchase their beauty products, and this launch gives us access to Amazon’s broad, high-intent customer base, enabling us to reach new and lapsed consumers in one of the world’s most trafficked marketplaces.”
Heaf cited Bath & Body Works’ in-store experience as an advantage in a competitive environment, though the company continues to reduce its mall-based stores. In Q4, the company opened 21 new North American stores, all off-mall, and closed 28 stores primarily in malls. The company ended January with 1,927 North American stores and 573 international stores. Heaf said the company has reduced SKUs in stores by 10% to simplify and modernize the in-store experience.
“Our global store fleet is a meaningful competitive advantage in beauty and fragrance, one that would take newer competitors significant time and resources to replicate, and we are committed to fully leveraging its strength to welcome more consumers to the brand,” he said.
According to retail foot traffic data from Placer.ai, visits to Bath & Body Works stores were up in late 2025 and early 2026. Overall visits to the retailer were up 24.2% year over year in October, 5.9% in November, 2% in December and 14.1% in January.
