New Aussie Online Store Growing Fast, even though it sells only one product

Young, charismatic, founder with a surprising business story to tell

Established in August 2011 workshirty.com.au has launched with a selected range of business shirts; Workshirty aims to service the young professional who doesn’t want to spend a large amount of their money on clothing for the workplace.

The business was created out of the personal need of the founder Dion Robeson. Being in his early twenties and working in a white-collar job, he found it difficult to find a good fitting business shirt at a reasonable price. He also struggled to understand why corporate clothing was so expensive; he was still going out to bars with friends on the weekend and didn’t want to be spending his pay check on corporate wear.

After speaking to many friends with the same problem, he decided to create a great fitting shirt for the young professional and source it himself. Having worked previously in the importing industry, he had some prior knowledge of sourcing in South East Asia so used that to find a supplier that could do the job.

The business model is one that has only become available due to the rise of the internet and in particular, Australia’s acceptance of online shopping. Workshirty is 100% online – meaning the overheads that are faced by bricks and mortar retailers are non-existent. They also source their shirts direct from the factory, meaning the customer pays a low price for a high quality shirt, as there is no margin going to the retailer.

Dion quotes “There are negative feelings about the retail industry in Australia however with customers being more open to buying online; businesses in Australia have the opportunity to provide really great quality products for prices that customers haven’t seen before”. Importers can now go direct to the suppliers and cut out the retailer margins that customers are used to. The importer becomes the retailer and that means happy days for the end customer.