Online activewear retailer, Stylerunner, is building on its global empire following the launch of dedicated menswear platform, Stylerunner Man. Stylerunner was founded by sisters, Julie and Sali Stevanja in October 2012, who saw a gap in the market for fashion forward sportswear for women. The online pureplay ships to almost 60 countries, and stocks brands including Nike, Adidas, Le Coq Sportif, and Lorna Jane. The site grew 600 per cent year on year in the last financial year, and is tip
pped to grow a further 400 per cent this financial year.
Internationally, the US has become the e-tailer’s second largest market outside of Australia.
The past 12 months has seen a wave of both local and international retailers eyeing the lucrative fitnesswear market.
One of the latest to enter the space is fellow online retailer, Net-A-Porter, who launched a dedicated sports apparel website, Net-A-Sporter, in July.
In October 2013, the Stevanja sisters launched Stylerunner Man, targeting what they believe is a market yet to capitalised on by both local and international retailers, however, the platform is yet to see the same sales figures as its sister site.
“We wanted to grow Stylerunner by the end of [2013] to 200 per cent and we ended up growing 600 per cent,” said Julie Stevanja.
“We’ve always wanted to spend more time on Stylerunner Man and increase the range, but our women’s site has just been exploding.
“We see some amazing metrics come out of Stylerunner Man. Our conversion rate is actually much higher on our men’s site – when they’re buying, they are buying larger basket carts, and if they buy something, they buy in every colour.
“It’s a really great customer for us in terms of shopping habits, but we haven’t been able to service it as well as we could.
“That’s something we’re now thinking – how do we improve that offering going forward? Or,
do we relaunch it with a lot of more planning?”
The pair are now looking at potential ways to build more brand awareness for Stylerunner Man, such as the extension of ranges and more focus on marketing.
“We think we could put an entire marketing team behind that and also have a blog that would be a mix between FHM and Men’s Health.
“Whether that’s something we immediately rollout, or we look at relaunching in a year’s time, it’s something we definitely believe in. We just want to make sure that we do a really
good job of it.
“We believe in the market and we definitely wanted to get in early because it’s something we thought would be big in a year or two.
“Women are early adopters and men usually take a couple of years to catch up in terms of trying something new online.
“There’s not as many men’s online stores compared to the competition there is on the female side, so if we can get that right there is still a lot of things going for it.”
