Less is more, Albert Espinós thought when he went on vacation for 25 days to Southeast Asia, and felt the need to have a pair of all-terrain shoes instead of taking three pairs, one for each occasion. From this need Tropicfeel was born, the Spanish brand specialized in design and online marketing that fights to be a benchmark in the traveler sector.
Currently, at Tropicfeel they have been stepping on the accelerator for five years to be the first travel product brand that offers the possibility of dressing the traveler from head to toe, and that is that during these five years they have managed to multiply their turnover.
Albert Espinós took advantage of his experience in crowdfunding to launch himself into producing the footwear he dreamed of during his journey in Thailand. He returned from that trip with an idea that prompted him to quit his job and bet on a need that already existed for many travelers. After many hours, days, weeks and months of effort put into understanding how the footwear industry and the textile world worked, he met the right person to start producing the product he had in mind.
“I went on a trip to the south of Spain looking for the factory where I could make this type of footwear, and that’s where there was that turning point and I began to develop a product with a face and eyes,” says Espinós. The next step was the launch through Kickstarter, the financing platform for creative projects, leader in the world of wordcloud funding, in which investors receive product in exchange for the initial investment in the project.
“We started with an expectation or a dream of reaching a turnover of 200 or 300 thousand euros, and we closed the launch billing 2.1 million euros in 51 days, having sold more than 55,000 pairs of shoes in more than 140 countries.” They broke records within the platform, although they assure that it was a somewhat overwhelming moment, says Espinós, “we have seen many entrepreneurs and projects die of success, and Tropicfeel could have been one of them, since it is not easy to meet expectations than 95,000 people when you did not have enough experience or resources to do it”.
After feeling the support of more than 90,000 customers who waited months for their shoes, they decided to go further, listen to their community and start diversifying their products. In 2020 they developed their first backpack and from there began their mission to offer innovation and inspiration to the new generation of travelers through their products. “There is no one leading the category of travel products and it is a huge market opportunity. Our parents’ generations had the sport internalized, and now the trip is something that we have lived.”
Tropicfeel began producing on demand through Kickstarter, and from there, the pre-sale model has accompanied them to a greater or lesser extent throughout their journey. “Producing on demand allows us to shorten the times in which we present new products to try to obtain profitability earlier.”
Producing on demand helps the company generate positive cash flow and finance production, and gives the customer the chance to get a product earlier and for a better price. It should be noted that the greatest benefit is for the environment, since it allows precision regarding the demand generated and, therefore, avoids overproduction.
Currently, the brand does all of its new product launches on demand. “We validate and demonstrate through a pre-sale campaign that the new products that we launch on the market make sense, and that each of the small details that we have thought of help make life easier for the traveler,” says Espinós.
Tropicfeel’s on-demand manufacturing in 2020 was 80% and today it is approximately 30%, because they believe it is necessary to find a balance between pre-sale and immediate sale. “I think you have to find a balance between the two, when we sell in pre-sale, we sell to a different audience than the one that actually buys that product when it enters the immediate sale phase.”
In the middle of last year, they realized that in order to consolidate the entire community that was born on Kickstarter and reach new travelers, they had to go to them. To achieve this, they decided to expand to new channels, the physical store and multi-brand stores. They started as a trial error with their first store as a Pop Up in the emblematic street of Portaferrissa in Barcelona.
Six months later they have decided to extend the period, “it has been very interesting, in April more than 350 thousand people have passed through the store”. Their objective goes beyond billing in a physical store, what they are really looking for is to generate branding, implement a local strategy that helps them make themselves known in different markets. “In order to grow brand recognition in all these markets, we have to invest in new sales channels. Hence, Pop Ups seem attractive to us to try, learn and from there, make the decision of where to take the next step.”
His next steps in the world of retail go beyond extending his Pop Up in Barcelona. Espinós assures that the ideal would have been to find a permanent physical space, but the conditions have allowed them to stay in Portaferrissa for an extended period of time and that is why they have decided to continue. They plan to continue making Pop Ups in shorter periods of time, two to three months, and at that point make the decision whether or not to speed up their own retail.
“For us, just as our billing has been balanced between pre-sales and immediate sales, the goal is for sales through multi-brand stores and physical sales to help us position ourselves, locate and grow in terms of billing.” Its forecast for 2025 is that physical sales, both its own and those of third parties, represent between 25 and 30% of turnover.
