plus the global compression wear and shapewear industry rapidly growing
, projected to surpass a whopping$22 billion by 2027
partly spurred by shaper mint a size inclusive online shapewear
and intimates apparel store that currently accounts for 10% of
shapewear sales sales. In the U. S.
Last week it announced it's rolling out its first brick
and mortar locations, partner with nationwide retailers Belk and
Nordstrom. And joining me now is Massa Emiliano Orochi
, co founder and CMO of shape permit. Massimiliano
, thanks so much for coming on the show.
So most retailers, they go from their brick and
mortar business to online, but you're taking the reverse
approach here in this modern age. What are the
benefits to doing that? Yeah, thank you for
having me here today is great. So on our
side like actually the decision was a strategy move we
wanted to take back in 2019 but then we have
to stop because of the pandemic one year later.
But on one side of the data showing of course
that most of the sales that happened in the shaping
industry happened like with physical stores and apart from that
also out of our seven million customers, we have
many of them that actually want us to be like
in the department stores in brick and mortar, maybe
to make sure that they can feel touch, try
different types of styles and also sizes. So for
us it was like media move that we wanted to
move faster because in this way we can also reach
a fair amount of customer base. We see the
push and the demand from the clientele to have more
inclusivity when it comes to some of these products,
what's the business opportunity by making a brand and an
offering more inclusive. I'm sure that probably does lead
to a bigger business opportunity. Yeah, for sure
. Like on our side is like maybe about understanding
what are the consumer needs and also making sure that
we are fitting like as much like consumers as we
can and also trying to understand really based on these
needs that they have like how our products fit them
. Right? So on one side for us it's
really important about being like size inclusive, really making
sure that we are developing our products to be like
for different body types, body shapes and making sure
that they're supportive but also comfortable, which I believe
is one of our main value proposition and matching that
with great prices are really being affordable and providing high
quality at the same time. How is the pandemic
impacted a demand for your, your apparel? Well
actually we have been growing since 2018 when we launched
a shipment and then also during the pandemic and also
like being profitable. And the main thing that we
have seen on our side is really about understanding like
the changes within the subcategories of the product that we
were selling for instance, like maybe you have some
products more like from the bottoms which may be the
show was a little bit lower but then we have
a big increase in the, in in categories such
as like the our leggings, weed control also with
tanks and tops and which is a big percentage of
our sales. So the reality is like we have
, we have to adapt really to the categories that
we are like selling at the moment but also we
have been able to grow online mainly because of the
request of our customers. We have seen competitors in
this space and thinking of kim Kardashian's Skims for instance
. Banks has been around for a long time too
. So how are you trying to differentiate your own
product line line up, Massimiliano to what does exist
on the market now? Yes, that's mainly why
we have actually started in 2018. We didn't try
the world like there was an opportunity on our end
we wanted since the beginning to not to follow really
standards of the industry so making that's why actually we
built like a community, it's called like shape the
future which we have like over 1000 customers that they
participate and the co design and also the test our
products so in this way we can also make sure
that we are like trying that in different body types
and body shapes and on our side we try to
combine that with really developing products that are comfortable so
that you can wear it along the entire day and
at the same time we are really strong, like
really well positioned in terms of price point. So
we are like affordable for them to get this great
and apart from that like as a, as a
brand, we really wanted to double down in terms
of like building a community and the messaging that we
have behind the brand. Okay, We were just
showing some footage there. You can get it at
Nordstrom. That's one of the places to find it
as well. Massimiliano Taraji is the co founder and
CMO Shaper man. We got to leave it there
. Massimiliano, thank you.