the NSW Government. COMPANY PROFILE: The Modibodi website was launched in 2013, offering absorbent period and leakproof underwear to women, using Chong’s patented Modifier Technology. The collection has since extended to tops, singlets, maternity and swimwear and customers come from Australia, New Zealand. Canada, US and the UK. There are now plans in the works for Modibodi to expand into Europe and Asia. Inside Retail Weekly: Modibodi has had a great year so far and is a finalist in the World Retail Congress Awards. What’s it been like gaining that kind of recognition in less than five years of launching? KC: It’s been awesome. It’s reiterates that what we’re doing is something to be proud of, we’re making a difference. It’s really cool. There are seven staff on the team. It’s small, but we run pretty lean! A big highlight for me has been taking the business from this concept to actually seeing that we can scale it. There is enough of a market fit and need that when we spend more on marketing, we have a direct return. That’s sinking in for me now and it’s changed my mindset about the business, even when it’s hard, it’s even more exciting, because you can feel the growth. IRW: When you’re talking about scaling the business, we’re talking about overseas expansion? KC: Ninety-five per cent of our customers are in Australia and buy through our site, but last week, we launched a .co.uk site and that will be a base to test the UK market and move into Europe. France and Germany will be the next with an eu site after that. We’ve also expanded our distribution channels, so agents and distributors are coming to us to represent the brand in countries we won’t go into with our ecommerce channel, like South Africa, Iceland, Israel and South Korea. IRW: Would you consider expansion into Asia? KC: Yes, we’ve got a very big brand in the maternity space that wants to partner with us and help us take Modibodi into the Asian market. They’ve got a lot of customers already and understand the landscape. IRW: Is wholesaling something you might do? KC: We did do wholesaling for a little bit, but because we weren’t a known brand and we had to educate the customer before selling the product, I knew were going to run at a loss and I wasn’t prepared to do that. I thought, ‘Let’s educate the market first, then look at a wholesale strategy.’ Whether we wholesale in Australia or look at setting up our own stores, that’s something we’ll look at as time progresses. We’ve considered bricks-and-mortar stores and we even had someone in that role for three to four months, but the margins just weren’t there. We just weren’t seeing a willingness [from department stores and other retailers] to support an innovative product and move away from the big brands. They’re doing what they need to do to make their businesses succeed at this stage, they’re not focused on brands like ours. IRW: The concept of period and leak proof underwear is new to most consumers, there must have been a lot of education required for the business. Was it hard cracking the intimates category and going up against a lot of big brands? KC: Because we sit between feminine hygiene and intimates, the first year was underwhelming and exhausting. But now, I think the market is saying they want our product – regular underwear doesn’t do what our product does and disposable hygiene doesn’t have the environmental benefits our product has. We’re now speaking directly to our customers and our brand strategy has partly helped us reach that intimate apparel customer as well. Because we are educating customers about a new way of wearing underwear, that did take some time, but I must admit, we have had a lot of support. Even when I mentioned the idea to women, I’d get either, ‘Huh? What does it do? I don’t understand, can it really do that?’ or ‘Oh my gosh, why didn’t I do that myself?’ The other great news is we’ve got social media and digital, so we’ve been able to grow that spend slowly and compete for the same customer share as the other big brands. We couldn’t afford the print and big billboards at the start, but digital, social and PR have allowed us to compete on a very economical scale. IRW: How has your past experience in PR and marketing helped your work at Modibodi now? KC: When I launched, I didn’t have a lot of money. We had a small amount of seed funding, we didn’t get capital to launch the business, so I used my background to help – I was writing to journalists and influencers and pitching stories – that way, my time was about how we generated marketing and brand awareness. Then, we got on Facebook early on and created a community. My marketing experience has helped me analyse our results, we’re very metrics-driven and we know exactly the cost per acquisition for a new customer, our return on our EDMs and how many customers are coming to our site. We use that data to influence our marketing as well. IRW: I like how you use a diverse range of women in your marketing campaigns. KC: We decided to do things differently compared to the rest of the intimate apparel industry through our advertising. We use diverse women in our advertising, we don’t photoshop our models and as well as breaking down taboos [around menstruation and incontinence], we wanted to make women feel normal and we couldn’t present models that didn’t represent a wide range of women. I’ve had people come up to me and say, ‘If you made [your marketing] more aspirational and had more pretty skinny women, I think you’d make the issues look better’ but it’s about being real and periods. So what if she’s got a bruise on her thigh or cellulite? Also, most of us aren’t walking around in lacy lingerie. Sometimes, we do. We’ve created those products in the past and they don’t sell as well. Many women out there want nice-looking undies that feel good and want to be comfortable, which is where we sit – we’re fashionable, but comfort-driven. IRW: How would you describe the Modibodi brand story? KC: It’s about empowering women and we empower our women from our customers and women in need and empowering women to make better choices for them and the world around them. I think women are fed up and even if some other brands use curvy women, they’re still photoshopping them so they’re still representing them in this perfect light. We don’t do that. I think it’s important for young girls to see what other girls look like. IRW: How long have you been selling Modibodi into the US? KC: We’re selling via Amazon, but we’ve got competition there. We’re not afraid of being in that market, but we know entering it will cost a lot of money and we see a lot of synergy in our marketing approach with the UK and Europe. When you put Germany, the UK and France together, the market size is equal to America. No-one is owning that market and that’s what we want to do. We’ve done that here, we’re managing to keep competition out and we want to go into Europe and Scandinavia and start saying, ‘We own this market’. The awareness of periodproof underwear is at 0.05 per cent in the European market, so we’ve got a lot of education to do first. We’ll go the same route [that we did in Australia] – making a big splash, going in with the PR, getting influencers and media to talk about it, then do digital and social to back it all up. We’ve been in the US for a year, but we were a vendor and we felt that it was really hard working with Amazon. We’re getting sales but we’re not doing marketing, so we’ve withdrawn as a vendor, because I felt they weren’t listening. We’re going in as a seller now, so as soon that trademark is certified, we’ll push our marketing on Amazon. In the US, what you’ll find is even if you have an American site set up, customers will check it, but then go back on Amazon [to buy]. So we’ll stay on Amazon and see what we can build there and once it’s big enough, we’ll explore different distribution channels. We’re focused on international expansion this year, as well as new product development. We launched swimwear last year, we’ve got other areas that will have to wait and see, but product expansion is big for the business and of course, because we are scaling and maybe seeking investment to scale, we need to ensure we have the right ops and staffing behind us so production is healthy. Manufacturing is a big focus for me and my team. IRW: Is it difficult selling underwear online, especially when you’re a new brand with a new product concept? KC: It hasn’t been for us. That’s not to say we have customers who want to feel the product first, but we actually got over that hurdle by offering a 30-day free trial on their first pair. I think that helps customers go, ‘Oh well, if it doesn’t work, I’ll get my money back.’ You won’t go too wrong with your regular size undies and we offer exchanges and refunds anyway, because we’ve got hygiene stickers. So far, it’s working. Can we sustain it? There’s always talk of ecommerce stores and whether they can sustain being pureplay but like I said, we’re not against wholesaling, but it has to be the right offer. We will explore pop-ups later this year, though. We’ll look at some pop-ups in some key demographic areas in shopping centres, Queensland, Sydney and Melbourne. IRW: Where do you see the business going in the future? KC: For me, this business has been about growing a business that’s financially profitable. We have a big, big vision for those goals and the numbers we want to hit, we want to compete with the big intimate players here on those sorts of scales, if not bigger. We also have a social impact side to our business, where a percentage of our profits go to women in need. We’re providing a low-cost, sustainable solution in different markets and we’re exploring that now. We’re working with South Africa and Uganda to trial and see how that might work. IRW: Can you tell me about the work you’re looking to do with women in need? KC: We’re doing it in a number of ways. We’re looking to work with government directly and creating a low-cost product that customers may purchase directly from us. We can work with big retailers to get the distribution rights to get it out to women in need, especially somewhere like South Africa. That might work in a country where people can afford something low-cost. There are certain countries where there are women who are very poor, but can afford something that’s low-cost and sustainable. Then there’s the other model, where we directly donate our product, and a percentage of our profits are donated into areas where the women can’t afford anything. That’s a whole other initiative, where we’re work with individual organisations to help deliver that product. We do that in Australia through our Give a Pair program, where we deliver the product into women’s shelters, where they’re victims of domestic violence and often can’t afford feminine hygiene. This way, they have a solution when they’re going through those times of hardship and trouble. For a lot of women who don’t have access to those feminine hygiene, they can’t go to work and school – you can’t wee or bleed all over your clothes all day – it keeps women back, so my whole campaign is to give them access to products that allow them to progress. IRW: You’ve got a product that caters to females as soon as they get their period in their teens, but then you’ve got older women who have incontinence. How do you market to these demographics differently? KC: Our main customer is 25 to 45. She’s buying Modibodi for her daughter who’s started her period and she’s using it herself as a replacement for period or incontinence. It’s OK to talk about periods and pee in the same sentence, because often that woman has had both. We’re not as focused on the 20-25 year old market, that’s not to say we won’t in the future, but we found that overall, the 25-45 year old demographic is a better audience for us. We have tried to speak to the older market. They’re harder to move and usually, it’ll be her daughter buying Modibodi for her. But in terms of speaking directly to them, we haven’t had a lot of luck. It’s a hard market to change. That’s where being in wholesale, like a Terry White chemist, would be awesome for us. We’re not putting pharmacies off at all. As I said, we’re still open to it, but it has to be the right offer. What is interesting is if you look at markets around the world, the majority of women do still use pads, even in Australia, and in a lot of countries insertables are considered taboo. There are so many girls out there who have just started getting their periods and now I have mums coming up to me and saying, ‘Thank you, now my daughter can just wear her undies for a year beforehand and she never has to worry about when her period will turn up.” The mum’s happy that her daughter has started with the brand, she’s thinking about a more eco-friendly solution from day dot and she hasn’t thought about disposables. That’s important for them. I think we’re becoming more eco-conscious and when you become a parent, even more so – you start thinking more about your eco footprint.