Lululemon Says Negative Buzz Hurt Its Traffic. Could It Have Seen It Coming?
10 min read
Lululemon says negative commentary in the media and on social channels hurt its traffic, as comparable sales fell 10% in its second quarter. Could it have seen that coming? Spikes in commentary can be spotted as they happen, but sentiment was only part of the problem. Weak product launches also played a role.
What Lululemon reported
In its September 2026 results, Lululemon reported that revenue fell 4% to $2.4 billion. It also cut its full-year revenue outlook from $11 billion to $11.15 billion down to $10.35 billion to $10.5 billion.
On the earnings call, management gave these details:
- Traffic was the main pressure. Executives said traffic was the biggest source of weakness, with conversion also lower year on year.
- North America fell. Revenue was down 8% and comparable sales were down 12%.
- China slowed. Revenue rose 4% as reported but fell 2% in constant currency, and comparable sales were down 8%.
- Leggings fell sharply. Sales of the signature category dropped about 20% as some shoppers moved to looser styles.
How the negative commentary played out
The clearest example came from China. Management said negative commentary spiked at the end of the first quarter and early in the second. It then grew after the first-quarter earnings call, with commentary about an event Lululemon held on the Great Wall of China.
Executives said this hurt brand sentiment and traffic, in stores and online. They described restoring consideration of the brand as the main focus there. A softer Tmall 618 sales event also hurt online sales.
Could it have seen it coming?
Partly. Nobody can reliably predict the exact moment commentary will turn. But a spike can usually be seen before it reaches the quarterly results, and that buys time to respond.
Lululemon hasn't said publicly what it was tracking or when it first saw the shift, so we can't judge how it responded. What we can say is that its results show the delay between conversation and revenue. The commentary began around the end of one quarter, and the impact was explained in the next quarter's results.
It is also easy to blame noise. Lululemon itself pointed to an inconsistent response to new products, and no sentiment tool fixes a product people don't want. Often the two problems feed each other.
What marketers can do
- Set a sentiment baseline by market. Lululemon's China and North America stories were different. A global average could hide both.
- Agree in advance what counts as a spike. Decide how large a change triggers a review, who gets told and who can respond.
- Read commentary against traffic. Plot both on one timeline, so you can see whether conversation is actually changing behaviour.
- Separate brand problems from product problems. Falling traffic points in a different direction from people visiting and not buying. Check both before you spend on a fix.
To keep commentary and performance side by side, teams can use InsightIQ by GalaxiQ, part of GalaxiQ's enterprise AI marketing platform, which pairs performance data with customer sentiment to help teams catch dips early. When a response is needed, Pulse in Ideanise by GalaxiQ lets them see and reply to comments across channels.
Frequently asked questions
Management pointed to lower traffic linked to negative commentary, an inconsistent response to new products and a decline of about 20% in leggings. China was also affected by a softer Tmall event.
