How Shapermint Achieved Profitable Success Growing Like A Unicorn

Direct-to-consumer brands are growing fast in multiple industries. Social media platforms have allowed many companies to use their advertising platforms to scale and achieve immense growth in a relatively small amount of time. Brands like Purple, Dollar Shave Club, Warby Parker, MVMT, and Harry’s are a good example of this.

Shapermint too can be counted among them. In their first 15 months of business, the online shapewear store achieved more than $100 MM in sales, acquired 2 Million customers and even more impressively, did it all in a profitable way without the need for external funds.

You’ d expect that with projections similar to a unicorn (a company with a valuation of over $1 Billion), Shapermint would be backed by a VC firm, but they are not. The success they achieved was leveraged from their marketing skills, their passion for technology and a strong mindset focused on growth.

A brand with a purpose

Shapermint is an online shapewear store that sells curated styles from top-rated brands. It is part of the Trafilea Group, an ecommerce company that builds life-changing brands through mission-led messaging.

The shapewear industry has been categorized as “ against body positivity” in the past, usually related to body shaming. Shapermint entered the market with a totally different approach led by a goal to change public perception of shapewear. They doubled down on a market in decline, with a big opportunity to grow.

The result?

More than 3 billion ad impressions, 20+ million unique visitors (only in the US) and 48% of their customers wearing shapewear for the first time.

It wasn't just about selling shapewear. Shapermint soon realized that in order to be successful they would also have to first educate potential customers on the real reasons why women wore shapewear.

An important part of their strategy is actually changing the conversation about shapewear, transforming it into an everyday garment that women are no longer ashamed to wear. Shapermint also worked on making sure customers understand how to correctly wear shapewear, so that they could see it fitting into their lives.

Through their content and advertising, they show women with real bodies wearing shapewear – without any body-editing. They keep it real, with a clear and direct message.

The Trafilea Group is Shapermint's parent company, which has risen to the spotlight due to its strong online marketing expertise and focus on profitable customer acquisition, leveraged from their use of technology and data

“There are no easy formulas or secrets. It’ s an entire mindset and having a team obsessed with results and data,” says Massimiliano Tirocchi, Founder and CMO. “We constantly analyze and conduct qualitative and quantitative research to ensure we know exactly what our personas ’ needs, what their desires and interests are, what languages they speak, and how they relate to our products.”

“Through multiple sales formulas, we make sure that our entire message is compelling for the specific audience we are targeting. We dedicate a lot of effort to our creative communication and strategy. In this way we can scale investing on multiple platforms while keeping a fresh communication,” he also shares.

Their in-house Media and Creative teams work side-by-side with the Development team to constantly improve onsite results, while its Business Intelligence team leverages data and works on proprietary tools to automate and improve decisions.

But having teams is not the only thing needed, Santiago Zabala, Founder and CEO mentions: “Our culture is fast-paced and ambitious. Our people live and breathe our core values and share the same purpose: changing people’s lives. We embrace remote working and have more than 150 talents from over 16 countries working directly with us.”

He adds: “We believe in radical truths and are transparent in our actions, behaviors and decisions. This allows our team and talents to have a better understanding of reality and align, iterate and grow faster.”

Shapermint achieved enormous success by deeply understanding where their people were, how to talk to them and how to engage with them in a compelling way. Identifying the opportunity is not enough; you must have a really ambitious goal and a clear mindset to achieve it. A mindset that must be shared across the entire organization.