We absolutely love a success story. When an athlete does something great. It doesn't always have to be on the pitch, sometimes our best achievements take place behind the scenes.
You may already know that we at SPORTTAPE have a good relationship with the Chile National Rugby Team. The same team that achieved the unthinkable back in 2022, when they qualified for the Rugby World Cup for the first time in their history. Do you know how that partnership came together?
Allow us to introduce House of Tapez, our exclusive tape distributor in Chile...
WHO ARE HOUSE OF TAPEZ?
Three childhood friends with ambitions of becoming the number one tape supplier in Chile.
Similarly to us, their name explains what they do pretty well. House of Tapez (@houseoftapez) is currently the official and exclusive distributor of SPORTTAPE in Chile. They formed the company back in 2022 and have been growing ever since.
Working in both retail and wholesale has allowed them to build their customer base and become the go-to business for rugby tape in that area of South America. With goals of bringing in some of the country's biggest teams, such as their national football squad, it's exciting times for our Chilean partners.
Now, let's pull back the curtain and introduce the names behind House of Tapez.
MEET THE TEAM:
- Jaime Paredes - Co-founder and business student Jaime, is a former Chile National Rugby Team youth player and, like his partners, a key part of the CD Alumni squad. His responsibilities include overseeing the import operations and international relations with us. If we have a query, he's our guy.
- Andrés Kuzmanic - The team's other co-founder, Andrés, is also studying business (among other things), and like his business partners is all-in on his rugby, playing a part in the country's historic World Cup run in 2023. He's in charge of both retail, wholesale sales and their brand marketing. Alongside that, he manages the relationships with their clubs and customers.
- Domingo Venegas - The new CTO, Domingo, joined Tapez in early 2024. A software engineering student that's brought his skills and knowledge to the team, growing their website and managing the online orders. He can definitely be described as cool, calm and collected.
WHERE DID IT ALL BEGIN?
The building blocks were put in place back in 2022. Lifelong friends, Jaime and Andrés were already connected through rugby, a sport where, as we well know here in the UK, tape is 'essential'.
In their own words, getting your hands on quality tapes and bandages in Chile, for a fair price, was "nearly impossible". And from that, House of Tapez was formed. In their search for a solution, they came across us and not long after, they were one of our official distributors.
HOW OFTEN IS TAPE USED IN CHILE?
Like we mentioned, rugby is definitely the sport that demands the most tape, not just in the UK, but Chile too. With that in mind, the sort of applications that we see being used here, are heavily used there too. Interestingly though, after speaking with Andrés, he explained to us that 'tape culture' does differ slightly.
On this side of the Atlantic, K-Tape is seen as our 'headline' product and used nationwide for muscle injuries and joint support. In Chile, that's not the case. It's used, but no where near to the scale it is in the UK. Now, the House of Tapez team are doing their best to showcase the product's versatility and establish it's position in the market alongside the old reliables.
Unsurprisingly, the most commonly used products there are Tear EAB and Zinc Oxide. Combining the two into a bundle has proved to be successful for the team. Given that the majority of our rugby strapping applications heavily involve these two tapes, we aren't surprised to hear of the demand for them there.
In a country where rugby is growing so rapidly, what with the recent success of the national team, it'll be interesting to see just how much it continues to grow.
We always find it really interesting to learn about how tape is used in different areas around the world. Which ones are popular, what sports they're used for and are there any new techniques that we can learn from them!
With our latest partnership in Chile, we thought we'd take the opportunity to tell you about it too. We'd like to thank the team over at House of Tapez for their time and look forward to what the future holds with the company. If you have any questions for us, get in touch! We're happy to help.
