The right move: How Melissa’s business turned exercise into profits

Melissa Pain admits that in the early days, her business MoveActive was a challenging brand to grow.

This was largely because at the time, very few people were aware of her core product - grip socks that keep your feet steady during Pilates and yoga practice. “People didn’t know what they were then, or what you needed them for,” the Melbourne-based entrepreneur says.

But it was Pain’s experience as a customer that made her sure she’d found a gap in the market. At the time she was doing about five Pilates classes a week but could only find three types of non-slip socks available for sale in basic colours.

MoveActive socks in action.

She sensed there would be growing demand for alternatives. “You actually spend a lot of time staring at your feet when you do Pilates,” she says.

Pain started to design the brand while on maternity leave, and over the next five years slowly grew the company’s footprint until it had expanded from side hustle to a fully-fledged business.

Over the same period, Pilates and yoga classes exploded in popularity across Australia. By 2019, more than 580,000 Australians were regularly participating in Pilates, according to AusPlay, a national survey conducted by the Australian Sports Commission.

Participants aged over 15 were estimated to be spending $352 million per year on the activity.

The number of participants has grown since the pandemic, according to business insights firm Statista, which estimates 1.1 million Australians over 15 do Pilates. The exercise accessories market in Australia has ballooned, with consumers spending billions of dollars on equipment each year.

Revenues across fitness and athletic clothing stores have seen a compound annual growth rate of 4.7 per cent over the past five years, to $4.1 billion, according to industry analysts at IBISWorld.

The competitive landscape for MoveActive is very different from when Pain started the business back in 2009. In the years since the pandemic, new activewear brands are launching almost weekly.

“Back then, there were no competitors at all - I think I had the market for about eight years on my own,” she says. As the market has grown, MoveActive has been forced to evolve to stay essential to its customers.

The experience has highlighted lessons that founders can apply regardless of their industry.

“We have solidified loyalty and trust with our customers,” Pain says. “We have such strong customer service that we haven’t seen the impact on our business [from competitors].”

MoveActive founder Melissa Pain

When MoveActive first encountered pressure from global competitors, the brand moved fast to make sure its product was better quality and a better fit for customers.

“The only thing that we could do was be better… we really analysed our product and designs,” Pain says.

The business also worked hard to make a strong connection with its customers and find out the specific types of products they wanted. That relationship with customers, including MoveActive’s network of wholesale stockists, was what helped buoy the company during the pandemic period, where exercise studios across the country shuttered.

The brand worked with providers as they pivoted to online classes during lockdown. The team also took detailed feedback from consumers to shape an expanded range of clothing and accessories beyond grip socks.

“We have a very close relationship with our customers, and they basically tell us what they want. They are the ones buying our products,” Pain says.

Fifteen years on from launch, MoveActive’s core team remains in Melbourne where they design the company’s newest collections.

The brand now has a global reach, however, selling into multiple markets and providing its socks and other accessories to 6,000 different stockists.

Despite expanding the company’s reach, Pain’s approach to customer service and building a community remains unchanged. She believes first-time founders should not lose a personal touch.

“If you’re founding this on your own, make sure you are the person on the other end for customer service,” she says. “As a founder now, I look at the [customer service] chat every five minutes. I want to know what people are saying.”

The fact that consumers get to know the team has helped drive customer loyalty during a time when shoppers have more and more options for buying exercise products.

“I think people really want to support their local communities…I think Australians are supporting local brands,” Pain says.

“The international ones [brands] that are coming over here aren’t having as much of an impact these days.”

This story was created in partnership with Google. The content is independent of any influence by the commercial partner.