It has been 18 months since Sito Busto started his modern, smartly packaged brand of boxer shorts, but business is already gathering pace. In the crowded although admittedly uninspired men’s underwear market, the Spanish entrepreneur, together with his business partner José Diseco, is trying to add a stitch of style to a growing army of young customers.
“All our energy has gone into creating an international group of thousands of boxer short supporters and encouraging two-way communication between members. Platforms such as Facebook and Instagram have facilitated that conversation.”
Boxer Union
A big part of this is through story-telling via social media. “Online communication has been an absolutely essential part of positioning our brand,” explains Busto, who has endeavored to unite Boxer Union followers under the banner of a “collective” which rejects the ubiquitous imagery of high-profile underwear campaigns (think ‘tighty-whiteys’), and replaces it with nods to the golden era of cinema and even military propaganda. The result is a brand that celebrates the classical boxer short, combining traditional masculinity with the renewed elegance of more modern prints such as camo and geometric patterns.
Why Bloombees?
Since Bloombees entered into the equation, Busto has been able to rally the burgeoning ranks of his so-called army into a flurry of impulse-buying. With prices ranging between €19.95 and €24 for each item, an app that allows him to sell boxer shorts directly to followers with the speed of just one click, is a potent weapon.
Busto, has plenty of industry knowledge up his sleeve, harking from a background that has seen him work for Loewe to Spanish department store El Corte Ingles. His latest venture, plays up its strong European roots (production is spaced out across Europe, from Bulgaria to Portugal and Spain), but recently added a more cost-effective line produced in Asia. “As we’ve grown, we’ve strived to offer more variety, and this extends to the price range too.” There’s also a popular bespoke element, with the option to embroider your initials to each pair of boxers.
“People don’t want to be spending too much time going through a labyrinth of clicks and payment platforms just to buy underwear; Bloombees has streamlined the whole process for everyone, making people more willing to impulse buy.”
Boxer Union
With online sales constituting around 20% of overall trade, and the growing international makeup of the collective (Boxer Union now sells across Italy, Austria, the UK and Japan), there is a clear battle plan to march further around the globe. “We just hired a full-time online sales manager to lead this strategy, and using Bloombees for our targeted sales campaign has made his life a whole lot easier.”
*This blog post was written by our guest writer Liam Aldous, journalist and Spain correspondent for the publication Monocle.
