Dr Martens has issued its fourth profit warning this year as a tough consumer environment in the US continues to affect sales of its sturdy boots.

The Northamptonshire-based footwear brand said sales fell 5 percent to £396 million ($499 million) in the six months to 30 September and pre-tax profits dived 55 percent to £26 million ($32 million). While this was better than City analysts had expected, the company said the outlook for the following six months had worsened because of a slower than hoped for recovery in its US business.

Shares in the retailer plunged 20 percent after the announcement, making Dr Martens the biggest faller on the FTSE 250 on Thursday. Priced at 92p ($1.16), the shares are now 75 percent lower than the 370p float price in January 2021.

Sales for the full year are now expected to fall by about 8 percent and underlying profits to drop back below the £223.7 million ($282 million) minimum expected by the City – continuing the slide seen since the company’s listing on the London Stock Exchange.

Kenny Wilson, the Dr Martens chief executive, said the group had fixed problems with its US warehouse, changed most of the management team there and was rebooting its marketing effort but added that it was proving “more challenging than expected” to return that part of the business to growth.

While the macroeconomic environment in the US is quite strong, Wilson said shoppers were holding back. “Virtually all of the big footwear and apparel brands have had difficult numbers,” he said.

In January, Dr Martens said costs had soared after a string of “operational mistakes” at its Los Angeles distribution centre, which opened in 2022. The company was forced to open temporary US warehouses in late 2022 after it bought too much stock and was affected by supply chain bottlenecks.

Wilson said Dr Martens had achieved better profits than expected in the first half of its current financial year as it had taken action to reduce costs in its supply chain that had helped offset inflation.

The brand put its footwear prices up in July, by about £10 ($12.5) to £169 ($213) for a classic boot, but Wilson said there would not be another price rise until at least the end of 2024 because inflation had now dropped well below the 6 percent.

Dr Martens continued to trade well in Europe and Asia, with sales up 8 percent in the UK in the half-year, helped by a return of tourists to London as well as a 4 percent contribution from price rises. The brand has opened a second store on London’s Oxford Street, with shoppers from the US and continental Europe returning to the capital after the coronavirus pandemic.

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When 29-year-old Maria, a social media executive from New York, arrived for a routine Botox appointment, she was surprised by an elective add-on her doctor proffered: Ozempic.

“[My doctor] said, ‘Oh, do you want a shot of Ozempic while you’re here?’ like she was offering me an extra napkin or something.” On hearing she could lose up to fifteen pounds that week, Maria took it, later finding the subsequent nausea overwhelming. But on the Upper East Side, where she had her shot, and across the nation, more and more people are collecting a weekly prescription — covertly or not.

In the blink of an eye, Ozempic, otherwise known as semaglutide, and its competitors like Wegovy and Rybelsus went from a little-known medicine for diabetics to a cultural touchstone. Its off-label use for weight loss, and fast, is what catapulted the drug from pharmaceutical-rep chatter to the preserve of Hollywood starlets, socialites and elite zip codes.

The drug’s prevalence has led to less consumption of candy and beer, per Walmart, and the rise of Ozempic face, a “suddenly gaunt, hollow-looking … prematurely aged face,” leading clients to change their minds on once-undesirable roundness and plumpness, said Dr. Ahmed El Muntasar, a general and aesthetic practitioner in the UK.

Moreover, Ozempic’s rise has yielded a hit on the “snatched” look. Spate, a consumer trends platform, found that social media searches for “contouring” are down 10.6 percent year-on-year, with co-founder Yarden Horwitz adding that while contouring techniques are slowing down in search, bronzing products, which create more of a healthy all-over glow, are up 33 percent since last year.

Skin-tightening lasers like Morpheus8, which can cost around $1,700 for a single face-and-neck session, and microdroplet treatments like Profhilo and the newly-FDA approved Skinvive that improve skin hydration the fine lines caused by sagging skin are also trending, experts said. Microdroplet treatments can cost upwards of $500 in prestige clinics.

“In my practice, I see a lot of people who didn’t need any facial filler because they were heavier people,” said Dr. Corey L. Hartman, a board-certified dermatologist with an aesthetic practice in Birmingham, Alabama. Now, those same patients are starting to request volumising treatments to replenish what Ozempic has taken away.

Plump It Up

The idea of roundness as desirable is an about-face from the contouring era that’s persisted since the mid 2010s, where sculpting ruled supreme. Popularised by social media influencers and celebrities, contouring accentuates shadow and definition, giving the face a sculpted look. In its heyday, cosmetics brands like Anastasia Beverly Hills and Fenty Beauty rushed to add sculpting sticks, palettes and kits to their line-up. In 2022, the craze went even further, with a procedure known as buccal fat removal, which can cost around $9,500, becoming popularised. A permanent, surgical procedure, it slims down the fat pads in the cheeks for more angular appearance.

But now some of those same patients are looking to be re-plumped. The likes of Dr. Hartman and Dr. El Muntasar can offer a range of procedures, including injectable dermal fillers composed of hyaluronic acid to give instant volume or bio-stimulating injections such as Sculptra, which can cost upwards of $1,000 per syringe, that help the skin produce more collagen to replenish what’s lost.

Dr. Hartman noted interest in Sculptra in his clinic is up threefold this year alone. Lisa Goodman, founder and chief of the bicoastal Goodskin Clinics pointed to the rising popularity of a treatment called Renuva — around $1,800 per syringe in some clinics — that stimulates the production of fat. Goodman said that clients view it as more holistic, or less fake, “because it stimulates your own fat cells, rather than just filling with pure volume.”

For Dr. Robert Schwarcz, an oculofacial plastic surgeon based in New York’s well-heeled Upper East Side, Ozempic has meant a change to an old faithful: the facelift. For a facelift to look natural, there still needs to be a good amount of volume under the skin to play around with. “Oftentimes, [patients] now just don’t have enough fat on their face,” he said. Instead, he has to harvest the fullness from other parts of the body via a fat graft.

The volumisation side of Dr. Schwarcz’s practice has expanded 25 percent, including client requests for fillers and fat grafting.

The Investment Opportunity

Aesthetics clinics and medical spas are in a strong position to capture residuals from the Ozempic boom. Research from consulting group McKinsey & Co. indicates that the US beauty services sector is expected to grow by 7 percent per year up to 2027, nearing $80 billion as a sector.

With a flood of new Ozempic patients looking for the next facial filler, clinics are expected to become more attractive investment targets. Just last year private equity juggernaut KKR took a minority stake in SkinSpirit, a US chain specialising in injectables.

Investors favour aesthetics practices due to their relatively straightforward financial modelling. Once a business has a certain number of units open, it’s easy to predict how many more can be opened in five years, providing the clinic concept is proven. What’s more, consumers show no signs of cutting back — partly because they can’t self-administer fillers like they might DIY a manicure, but also because it’s become normalised. A 2022 audit by the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPs) showed a 124 percent increase in Botox treatments against the previous year.

Dr. Hartman added that for the best results, bio-stimulating treatments require a few sessions, spaced apart. That’s more chargeable chair time for the proprietor.

There’s also the fact that one change often begets another. “[Patients] often come in towards the middle of their weight loss. And they say, ‘How do I make my face match my body?” said Goodman.

Maria’s name has been changed to protect her identity.

As holiday shoppers return items purchased during Black Friday and Cyber Monday online shopping sprees, more US retailers could tell them to keep items that cost more to ship back than they are worth.

This year, 59 percent of retailers offer so-called “return-less” or “keep it” policies for unwanted products whose returns costs exceed their value, according to returns services firm goTRG, which surveyed 500 executives at 21 major retailers, including Walmart and Amazon.

Last year, 500 retail executives said 26 percent of companies had such policies, said goTRG CEO Sender Shamiss, whose company counts Walmart among its clients. They didn’t break out the number of companies involved in last year’s survey.

As retailers adopt technology to root out excess costs, more are embracing return-less policies for certain online purchases, said Shamiss, who declined to name companies that use them. That information is “not something that retailers want out there” due to worries the policies could be abused by shoppers, he said.

The previously unreported survey results come as US shoppers are expected to return $173 billion worth of holiday purchases in the US this year, 28 percent more than last year, according to Optoro. The firm helps retailers manage returns, which typically rise after pre-Christmas sales like Black Friday and Cyber Monday and continue beyond Christmas.

“Our returns Super Bowl starts the day after Black Friday and goes into February,” said Optoro CEO Amena Ali, comparing her sector’s busy season to one of America’s biggest sporting events.

The typical return costs retailers about $30. Returns drain profits because they must be transported, sorted and resold - often at a discount - or disposed of at a loss. That has helped prompt almost 90 percent of retailers to revise a range of policies this year, Ali said. Those changes also include offering store credit, charging for some returns and encouraging shoppers to bring online purchases back to physical stores.

“You just can’t afford to ignore it,” she said of returns costs.

Reuters recently viewed a Walmart YouTube tutorial from February that helps marketplace sellers set parameters for their own return-less policies.

Walmart said it balances customer experience and its bottom line when considering exchanges and returns. That includes testing ways to help third-party sellers manage costs. The company called the training video out of date and it is now labelled private. Seventeen shoppers interviewed by Reuters said companies including Amazon, Chewy, eBay, Temu, Keurig, Wayfair and t-shirt seller True Classic told them not to return goods valued from around $20 to as much as $300 - including several that were defective or shipped in error.

Amazon said it allows customers to keep items on “a small number of returns as a convenience and to help keep prices low.” Wayfair customers in certain cases may have the option to keep items at a discount, according to the online furniture seller. Other retailers named by the shoppers did not respond to requests for comment.

The percentage of returns was nearly double pre-pandemic levels last year, standing at 16.5 percent of total US retail sales - or $816.8 billion worth of goods, according to data from Appriss Retail and the National Retail Federation.

Sellers of underwear, bedding and food were among the first adopters of keep it returns due to hygiene concerns or health safety rules. Shapewear seller Shapermint uses the policy to build loyalty by asking shoppers to donate the items or gift them to friends, said Gabrielle Richards, brand director at Trafilea, which owns the company.

The practice went mainstream during the e-commerce boom of the early pandemic, when shipping and delivery costs soared and warehouses were bursting at the seams. Companies stopped taking back unwanted t-shirts, pet toys or furniture that would increase costs and add to supply-chain backups.

These days, retailers weigh the cost of the return against the value of the shopper, with big spenders more likely to be eligible, experts said.

Eight of 17 shoppers interviewed by Reuters were told to keep goods purchased on Amazon, mostly from outside sellers. Items ranged from low-value goods like underwear and a raincoat to an incorrectly-sized mattress.

Amazon, Shapermint and other retailers battle potential fraud with technology that enables them to extend the service to trusted customers.

“We take fraud very seriously and when bad actors attempt to evade our controls, we take action and work with law enforcement to hold them accountable,” Amazon said.

Some sellers’ anti-fraud efforts have alienated shoppers.

Los Angeles-based photographer Pamela Peters late last summer got a refund for a $300 portable air conditioner that blew hot air - but only after she sent the Amazon seller a picture of the unit with the power cord cut.

“It’s so wasteful,” said Peters, who disposed of the unit before buying a replacement from a different retailer.

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Victoria’s Secret & Co. reported a larger-than-expected quarterly loss amid a rise in investment in marketing and technology, but the company said its efforts are starting to pay off.

A third-quarter loss of 86 cents a share, after excluding some items, was deeper the average analyst estimate of an 80-cent loss. Comparable sales, meanwhile, posted a seventh consecutive quarterly decline. However, the company said its sales in November are the “best monthly performance in nearly two years and further evidence that our initiatives are working.”

The intimates retailer has been working to reinvent its image after years of backlash to its sexy imagery that stopped resonating with consumers. During an investor conference in October, the company emphasised the expansion of its swim and sport categories, as well as the fashion show, known as the World Tour, which were meant to drive traffic at stores.

In addition to the increase in investments, the company blamed declining sales for its most recent loss.

“Our teams have been resiliently focused on what is within our control and working tirelessly on multiple growth initiatives designed to create momentum,” chief executive Martin Waters said in a statement.

Shares alternated between losses and gains in late trading. The stock has declined 34 percent this year through Wednesday’s close, compared with a 17 percent increase in the Russell 3000 Index.

A separate report Wednesday showed PVH Corp., the owner of Calvin Klein apparel and another maker of intimates, reported third-quarter earnings that missed estimates. The company also projects a weaker-than-expected performance in the current period. The shares fell 4 percent at 5:01 PM. in extended New York trading.

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