Sock it to them: Smart50 finalist Paire targets new customers with Melbourne pop-up

Melbourne fashion brand Paire wants customers to have the perfect fit.

Now, the Smart50 finalist seems to have found a perfect fit for itself: a new pop-up store in one of the city’s busiest shopping districts, giving the e-commerce brand a practical bricks-and-mortar presence.

Founded by Nathan Yun and Rex Zhang in 2019, Paire offers premium socks, shirts, underwear, and hoodies, produced using innovative blends of merino wool, cotton, and recycled polyester.

The venture has built seven-figure revenues since then, winning over customers with its comfortable, breathable goods, but has not committed to a dedicated store.

That might change after the launch of Paire’s pop-up store in QV, which Yun and Zhang say proves the importance of getting their product into the hands of would-be customers.

“Our biggest advantage is all in the material,” Yun said, reflecting on Zhang’s background in the textile industry, and the brand’s focus on fabric innovation.

Earlier in Paire’s history, the brand provided free socks to e-commerce customers as a way of proving their quality.

It was also a way to showcase what the brand did differently, be it the materials themselves, or hand-sewn toe boxes, and custom patterns allowing the heel of each sock to bend at a natural angle.

The physical outpost is an extension of that philosophy, Yun said.

“Since we have invested so much in developing our materials, we really want our customers to feel them.”

Paire founders, Nathan Yun and Rex Zhang. Source: Supplied.

Launching a physical store may seem like a common-sense way to retail a product.

However, not every e-commerce brand, particularly those that sprung up when COVID-19 lockdowns restricted bricks-and-mortar retail, is game enough to sell their product offline.

One business that does fall in that category is July, the luggage retailer and 2022 Smart50 winner.

Not only was July one of Paire’s earliest backers, but the brand also occupies a retail space just around the corner from the apparel brand’s QV pop-up.

The July team even encouraged Paire to book out the pop-up space, which the brand converted into a functioning retail operation in a matter of weeks.

“Whether it’s Aesop, or Off-White, or July, or Incu, these are the brands that we always see ourselves as belonging to, whether it’s quality, or price point, or lifestyle,” Yun said.

“These are the customers that we see our customers as: they live the same lifestyles that our customers do.”

Early indications show Paire is meeting that demographic with its pop-up shop.

Between 80% and 90% of its pop-up customers have been first-time buyers, the founders said, with the in-person clientele skewing noticeably younger than its average online buyer.

Paire has a physical office in South Melbourne’s busy King’s Way, which also doubles as an in-person billboard for the company’s products (and an unofficial retail site for those passers-by who step inside).

Given the pop-up’s success so far, Zhang said the business is considering what a permanent retail outpost could look like.

“It’s very positive for offline right now, even just after two weeks,” he said.

“Of course, we need to observe a bit longer, and see how it does in the quiet season,” he added.

“We’ve exhausted ourselves, we’ve exhausted the team,” Yun said, reflecting on the effort to get the pop-up running before the busy Black Friday sales period.

“But looking at the results: everyone’s happy, everyone’s excited.

“And for future, I’m sure that it was a really good test for us.”