Vans Brand Check-up: A Third of Sales Gone in Two Years
Vans revenue fell 24% in VF Corporation’s fiscal 2024 and another 21% in the quarter to June 2024. In two years the brand lost a third of its sales and its place as VF’s biggest brand. A new brand president started in July. Here is our check-up: the symptoms, the likely causes and the treatment under way.
Key takeaways
- Vans revenue fell 24% to $2.79 billion in fiscal 2024 and 21% in the first quarter of fiscal 2025, with the Americas down 28% and 25%.
- VF says the Vans decline included deliberate cuts to inventory in the wholesale channel, part of resetting the marketplace for the brand.
- Under CEO Bracken Darrell, who joined in July 2023, VF made the Vans turnaround a top priority, cut the dividend to $0.09 and agreed to sell Supreme for $1.5 billion, a deal still pending and below the $2.1 billion base price VF paid in 2020.
- Sun Choe, lululemon’s chief product officer from 2018 to 2024, started as Vans global brand president in late July 2024, about nine months after VF said the previous brand president would step down.
Download the full Vans Brand Check-up (PDF): vital signs, timeline, diagnosis, treatment and sources.
What the numbers show
In fiscal 2024, the year to March 30, 2024, Vans revenue fell 24% to $2.79 billion. That followed a 12% fall the year before, from $4.16 billion in fiscal 2022. In two years the brand lost a third of its sales. Its share of VF Corporation’s revenue fell from about 35% to about 27%, and The North Face replaced it as VF’s biggest brand.
The decline carried into fiscal 2025. In the first quarter, to June 29, 2024, Vans revenue fell 21% to $581.8 million, which VF called “a modest improvement relative to the previous quarter.” Vans has no shares of its own. Shares of its parent, VF Corporation, closed at $19.93 on October 1, about 80% below their January 2020 closing high of $100.23.
The Americas led the decline
When VF reported its second quarter of fiscal 2024, Americas revenue was down 11%, and down 3% excluding Vans. For fiscal 2024 as a whole, Vans fell 28% in the Americas, 13% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and 24% in Asia-Pacific. In the June quarter the Americas fell another 25%, and VF’s quarterly filing named the region as the biggest driver of the Vans decline. GlobalData analyst Alice Price, quoted by Retail Dive in November 2023, said Vans looked “outdated and unfashionable in the eyes of discerning young shoppers.”
Clearing stock out of stores on purpose
Part of the fall was planned. VF said Vans’ third-quarter and fourth-quarter declines included deliberate actions to right-size inventories in the wholesale channel. Chief executive Bracken Darrell listed “resetting the marketplace for Vans” as part of the next phase of the plan.
We think that is the right call. Extra stock at retailers tends to end in markdowns, and markdowns teach buyers to wait for a sale. Pulling stock back gives up sales now to protect price and brand later. It is the classic trade-off between brand building and sales activation, and VF chose the brand.
A new brand president after nine months
Darrell, the former chief executive of Logitech, joined VF on July 17, 2023. In October he launched Reinvent, a transformation program whose top priorities included “accelerating the Vans turnaround.” The same day, VF said Vans global brand president Kevin Bailey would step down and that Darrell would take “a more active role in leading the brand” while it searched for a replacement.
On May 30, 2024, VF named Sun Choe, lululemon’s chief product officer from 2018 to 2024, as global brand president of Vans. She started in late July. VF’s filings say its new operating model, which lets brand presidents focus on long-term brand-building and product innovation, is “particularly critical at this stage for the Vans brand.” Choe said Vans will build on the brand’s identity as “a lifestyle defined by creativity and authenticity.” That is a sound place to start. Vans has assets many brands would envy: Irvine Weekly called its sidestripe “the unmistakable hallmark of the Vans brand.” Clear brand positioning around that identity will matter more than volume.
The parent is paying down debt
The Vans reset is happening inside a company that is repairing its balance sheet. VF cut its quarterly dividend from $0.51 to $0.30 in February 2023, then to $0.09 in October 2023. In July 2024 it agreed to sell Supreme to EssilorLuxottica for $1.5 billion in cash, less than the $2.1 billion base price it paid in 2020. The deal is still pending. Net debt was $5.3 billion at the end of June. In May, Darrell summed up the plan as “fixing the Americas, turning around Vans, reducing costs and paying down debt.”
What growing companies can learn
Vans shows how quickly a well-known brand can lose a third of its sales. Look at revenue by brand, region and channel, not only in total: VF’s Americas numbers looked far better without Vans. Treat stock sitting with retailers as a brand signal, not just a sales figure. When a core brand stumbles, give it a dedicated leader quickly. A regular marketing audit is a simple way to catch these signs early.
This check-up uses public information available on October 1, 2024. It is brand and marketing analysis, not investment advice.
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