The Australian lifestyle is synonymous with thongs and beach culture, so when Scott Jungwirth discovered no Australian-made thongs exist, he and two business partners decided to step up and fill the void. The result is Thongs Australia — a rubber thong company that’s designed, made, packed and distributed right here in Australia.
Since launching as a side hustle in late 2017, the brand has sold more than 50,000 pairs of thongs, collaborated with iconic Aussie brands like Vegemite and Victoria Bitter and is now also sold via The Iconic.
According to Jungwirth, the secret to the brand’s success lies in its commitment to creating and selling a premium quality product, good PR and the value of the Australian Made label.
Designing and manufacturing a pair of thongs seemed a simple enough idea. But after conceiving the idea in 2015-2016, Jungwirth and his partners quickly realised their options were very limited.
“We were literally starting with nothing — not a tool, not a CAD (computer-aided design) — nothing,” explained Jungwirth.
“The whole manufacturing industry has moved abroad, which meant there were only a few manufacturers we could connect with. Eventually, we found one specialising in rubber manufacturing for mining, and medical supplies.”
In total, it took 18 months for the thongs to be designed and manufactured. And even after launch, the design has continued to be fine-tuned.
“We went through at least 25 different versions of compound trying to get the right balance between softness and durability,” said Jungwirth.
“A thong looks like a straightforward product, but it’s quite complicated to make well. And when you add different colour pigments, natural rubber can change again.”
Without local expertise to guide the process, Jungwirth found the product development phase to be a “constant frustration and disappointment”.
However, he admits those initial set-up frustrations are now some of the most rewarding elements of the business.
Once a final design had been achieved, the partners enlisted the help of Swinburne University to put it to the test.
“We wanted to validate the product and have some data to offer our customers,” Jungwirth explained.
“They tested our thongs against an office shoe, a runner and a few of our competitors. Thongs Australia smashed them all — it was really quite compelling. And when they tested our thongs for the old blow-out, which are synonymous with thongs, ours were four times stronger than the runner-up, who is one of the biggest players in the market.”
Something Jungwirth hadn’t considered, though, was how making a premium product could become a double-edged sword.
“We had to wait 18 months or longer for repeat customers because the thongs lasted so well,” he said.
“Someone wrote to us the other day saying they bought a pair of our thongs when we first launched five years and they’ve only just had to replace them.”
However, this “quality over quantity” ethos ties in with the team’s sustainability values.
“That person who had our thongs for five years could have gone through eight pairs of cheaper thongs in that time, and they all would have ended up in landfill,” Jungwirth said.
“We produce quality products and grind up our offcuts for recycling in industrial projects.”
Jungwirth says that one day Thongs Australia would love to offer a take-back recycling program, but it’s not viable for now. He also points out that by manufacturing in Australia, the company can produce its thongs on demand, reducing waste.
“We can manage our inventory very tightly because we don’t need to fill a shipping container with 10,000 pairs,” Jungwirth explained.
“I’ve always had a nightmare in my head that a massive container of your product arrives from another country, and it’s not right. Overseas manufacturing might be cheaper, but it has challenges all over it.”
Instead, Thongs Australia uses a vertically integrated business model.
“We manufacture, pack and dispatch all from the one site.”
Another contributing factor to the brand’s success is having the right team of partners, Jungwirth says.
“In the early days, we bought on a designer,” he explained. “Because it’s not cheap to manufacture in Australia, we needed to create a premium brand image to promote a premium price point. It was important to get someone onboard who is savvy and creative in design. Because if done well, design work can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Since then, the thong manufacturer has also become a business partner, and a lawyer has joined the original team of three.
“Everyone involved are great people, first and foremost,” Jungwirth said. “But at the back of our minds has also been the question of what each shareholder brings regarding expertise. I think that’s really important to consider. From design and marketing to manufacturing and legal.”
Jungwirth’s own experience lies mainly in marketing and retail. He holds a business degree majoring in commerce and marketing, and previously worked in marketing for Callaway Golf and later became the general manager for Tissot.
Thongs Australia has had the opportunity to collaborate with some of Australia’s most iconic brands, and Jungwirth is proud to admit they weren’t opportunities the team had to chase.
Instead, every opportunity came knocking on their door because businesses wanted to support the brand’s Australian-Made status.
The first major collaboration occurred in 2019 with Victoria Bitter, and another opportunity with Vegemite arose last year. These opportunities eventually pushed the Thongs Australia partners to move from a side hustle to full-time employees.
“We knew we had to go full-time about seven months ago,” Jungwirth said. “We were missing too many opportunities. It was time to capitalise on our work and improve our operation.”
Jungwirth estimates Thongs Australia has now sold considerably more than 50,000 pairs of thongs and a press release from the brand suggested the value of those sales is around $1 million.
“We’re proud of that, considering it has been a side hustle for so long,” he said. “We’ve had to hold full-time jobs and manage this after hours and on the weekends.”
At the time of launching, Jungwirth and his partners hustled for public relations opportunities in their own time using business connections from their previous careers. These days, they’ve brought in a specialist PR firm to support the brand.
“PR does work,” Jungwirth said. “I was just talking with a partner the other day about how you can do all this advertising, but sometimes there’s so much clutter out there, you just need to find ways to cut through it. And that’s what PR enables.”
The trick to getting good PR and traction with customers is having great imagery, Jungwirth said.
“I’ve always been a big believer that great imagery is really important in our digital world — it inspires trust,” Jungwirth said.
“I think a lot of startups working on lean budgets can’t build trust early on, even if they have a great product, because their website or marketing material doesn’t inspire trust.”
Thongs Australia has always been an online brand. And at this point, there are no plans to get the products into brick-and-mortar stores.
“We’re a little hesitant to do that,” admitted Jungwirth.
“We’ve had discussions with big chains and had some really positive conversations, but at this very moment, the investment required in merchandising, staff and all these other layers to support that type of distribution isn’t right for us. And there’s always the risk that the retailer might move on to the next thing in a year, leaving us with an expensive infrastructure to manage.
“I also think that in the early days, the balance of power sits with the retailer or the bigger entity, and we want to build our brand ourselves and retain control of it.”
Because the brand is only available online, Jungwirth and his partners decided early on to offer free postage for all orders.
“You get told that it’s not commercially viable to do that,” Jungwirth said. “But we’ve made it work and had a very good conversion rate for sales.”
The free postage also helps counter the more expensive price point of an Australian Made product.
“There will be a lot of people that say we’re too expensive, but I’d like to see the conditions that people work in to pass on our competitor’s products so cheaply,” said Jungwirth.
“One day, we would like to branch out into customisation and truly celebrate the fact that these shoes are Aussie made by assembling one-off pairs for our customers with their own messages on them. We’d also like to take the brand to an international audience.”
But for now, Thongs Australia has recently secured a retail deal with The Iconic and has more big-name collaborations around the corner.
And Jungwirth and his partners are enjoying the payoff from years of “hard work and frustration”, as well as their improved know-how.
“When you start your own company, you get the opportunity to gain a boarder understanding of business,” he says. “When you work with a big brand, you can spend lots on marketing and get great Meta and fluffy statistics. But because you’re such a big business, measuring success is very hard.
“Starting out small means everything is clean, and you get a much sharper reading on what works in a PR and marketing sense. It’s a great opportunity to develop your skills.”
Nicole Lutze is a freelance writer and regular contributor for SmartCompany Plus.
