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When Consuelo Bova met a friend's 7-foot-tall son, she slipped him a card for her online business that caters to guys that most apparel makers treat as misfits.
"We carry pants with inseams up to 37 inches," said the founder of forthefit.com. "He's only 15, so he's got more growing to do."
At 5 years old, so does For the Fit Inc., which endured its own growing pains with a compound annual sales growth rate of 68 percent.
From an out-of-work, expectant mother's startup brainstorm run from a spare bedroom in Lutz to a full-fledged business that has outgrown its Orlando miniwarehouse, For the Fit is headed for $500,000 in sales this year.
But this is a cautionary tale from the endless line of e-commerce startups based on gathering enough orders to profitably sell obscure goods and sizes too uncommon to get in stores.
Consuelo and Jeff Bova chose to work for themselves when Capital One in Tampa downsized, moving their manager jobs to Virginia.
After a brief spell as a lawyer, Consuelo, then 28, tried online retailing. Then to hedge their bets, Jeff, then 33, bought two storefront businesses — PhotomartUSA and WaveWire — that mainly sell to videographers and started shifting both online.
Consuelo's epiphany was learning her husband — at 5 feet 7 — could find no ready-to-wear pants anywhere to fit his 27-inch inseam. She saw potential selling clothing to 14.9 million men too short for the most commonly stocked sizes. Meanwhile, apparel makers continue shrinking the combinations of waist, inseam, rise and neck sizes they offer.
Rounding up a few brand-name suppliers with scarce sub-29-inch inseams was not too hard. But luring customers was like water-drip torture.
"I remember cheering when we hit five site visits a week," she recalled. "The first sale took months."
She got traction after learning through trial and error the word-search terms — which she guards like a state secret — that usually put forthefit.com on the first page of hits that Google summons for "short men's clothes." That helped her find 6,800 regular customers from as far away as New Zealand and emboldened the Bovas to add the tall and slender market (35-inch inseams and up) in July.
The Bovas feel flush enough to drop the last of the brand names. They now order directly from the brand's manufacturers in China and added popular sweatpants and pajamas to a growing selection. Their fleece sweats go for $28 to $38 in lengths cut so customers avoid paying $10 to $15 for hemming. Coming next: jeans.
It's no snap being a frontline advocate for millions of the snubbed. Delivery delays from suppliers are a constant threat. To minimize fashion risk, Consuelo sticks to popular basics in black, gray, blue or white. She feuds with garment industry salespeople who insist she buy normal sizes in return for their cranking out less-profitable, short production runs for her misfits.
"It's a male-dominated business that really taught me how to handle bullying," Consuelo said.
On the plus side, selling online with no store gave her the freedom to move closer to a sister in Orlando. With two kids under 5, she can work at home. She hires students for the holiday rush.
The steep growth curve has a downside. Consuelo works 10- to 12-hour days and takes no vacations beyond extended weekends. She finally built enough sales but has trouble finding the right full-time workers. For the Fit earns her a "decent living," but six figures is out for now.
"That's because to keep growing this fast, I have to pour more of the profit back into the business to keep buying 50 percent more inventory," she said.
The Bovas don't worry about competition from all those big-and-tall stores.
"We're not big," Jeff said. "We're tall and thin or small and trim."
Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8252.
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