Customer Spotlight: How Under 5'10 Found Its Perfect Fit

Customer Spotlight: How Under 5'10 Found Its Perfect Fit

Under 5’10 gave shorter men what they wanted - clothes that fit - transforming how men shop for clothes and building customers for life.

Key Takeaways:

Finding a Market of 32 Million People

How do you build a successful clothing brand in a crowded marketplace? For Elie Robinson, founder of Under 5'10”, the answer was simple: solve a problem that was hiding in plain sight.

"I'm 5'7" and a longtime shopper of traditional brands and could never figure out why the pants were always a little long on me," Elie said. "I'm not the shortest on the spectrum, but I couldn't figure out why I either had to tailor my pants or deal with pants that were bunched up at the bottom. Shirts just felt like I was swimming in them."

That's when Elie had his revelation. "I learned that the average male height in America was 5'9¾", or 5'10", and that's the size of the people the mass manufacturers are targeting with their sizing metrics."

This insight led Elie to discover that 32 million American men stand 5'8" and under—a massive demographic with few clothing options designed specifically for them.

Operations Spotlight

‘Pricing is the Key to our Model’

Elie’s vision for Under 5'10 extends beyond just making clothes that fit—he wants to make them accessible to as many men as possible.

"I'm still a fan of the low-cost or average pricing model. The two competitors we have are two to three times the cost of our goods," he said. "If you want to convert the masses, I don't want to convert 100,000 people. I want to convert 3.2 million of the 32 million. Pricing is going to be key to that model."

This combination of perfect fit and affordable price has been a winning formula. The company has scaled rapidly since its 2018 Kickstarter launch, expanding its product line and customer base year after year.

The Right Product for Building Brand Loyalty

The company's unique product is ideal for building customer loyalty.

"We encourage people on our website: In your first order, with free shipping and free returns, take advantage. Try out our sizes," Elie explained. "We know we're going to get returns, but we also know from our history of five years, once somebody finds their size, they are locked in."

"It's a different type of ecommerce model because once we get them, their lifetime value is far greater than most e-commerce companies would have with their customers," he added.

Solution Stack Spotlight

Quick Pivots and Lessons Learned

What began as a brand focused on shirts quickly pivoted when customer demand revealed a different priority.

"We started with shirts, but we quickly discovered that pants were what men were really looking for," he said. "We kind of bumped into it with our first pair of jeans on our first order, and they were gone at a ratio of 20:1 to button-down shirts."

This insight prompted a new focus on developing a comprehensive pants collection - a process that took 3 years but emerged as the cornerstone of the business.

The Accidental Success of Scarcity

In the early years, Under 5'10 frequently faced inventory challenges that unexpectedly worked in their favor.

"We became the brand that was always out of stuff. It created a nice hype. People were just waiting for our next drops, which were really just restocks of existing items," Elie explained.

However, as the brand grew, this strategy became less sustainable. "It almost accidentally worked for us as a strategy for 2-3 years. But then at a certain point, when you get big enough, people are just frustrated."

‘Finaloop, We Don’t Have a Need for Anything Else’

Managing rapid growth requires the right financial tools, something Elie discovered through trial and error. "We test so many apps, so many platforms, and then they are gone within a day or within a week. You have to do that to end up in the right places," he said.

After outgrowing QuickBooks Online, which "couldn't handle volumes like we were doing," Elie’s team found Finaloop. "I'm happy that we did. It eliminated the need for us to have on staff a controller or somebody doing daily reconciliations, with the AI tools that are built into it," he said. "I still use Sheets for calculating and predicting cash flows. For everything else, it's Finaloop. We don't have a need for anything else."

The Road Ahead

As Under 5'10 continues to grow, they're expanding their product offerings to address more customer needs. Their top seller remains jeans in medium wash color, available in both ultra stretch and regular stretch options.

The company is now preparing to launch straight and regular fits for their jeans and chinos lines, adding more variety to their already popular collections.

With a clear understanding of their market and a clear view of their financials, Under 5'10 is positioned to continue transforming how men shop for clothes - and keep providing their customers with the perfect fit.