Just the other day I received the following question from a reader:
Hello, I’m wondering if you can give me some advice.
I’m looking to buy some new compression shirts. Preferably sleeveless, I used to buy them from Walmart and liked the compression they offered, but they no longer seem to sell them anymore.
I recently purchased a shirt from Target and it offers hardly any compression. Are there and big box type stores that sell good shirts that offer alot of compression?
I am considering buying some from underworks, but I’m getting married in a couple days so won’t have anything I order in time. Thanks for any info you can provide.
Thanks, Martin
In hopes to help this good fellow, and get Martin feeling confident on his wedding day, I was poking around online and noticed the following:
What’s Missing You’re Asking?
Well, check out this snapshot of the website from late June 2015.
Spanx For Men Being Discontinued?
Well, if it’s not obvious, the thing that’s missing from the current top menu is the “Men’s” category link.
In fact, it’s pretty darn hard just to find an option to locate the Men’s Products. The quickest way I found was to search for “men” in the top search bar.
Even then, I only found 5 products, and all were discounted from their original retail price. Strangely, they were all discounted $5.01 from the original price.
In the Sale section, they do have a filter option for “Undershirts”, but that actually brings up two different undershirts called “Flex-Touch”, and those too are discounted $5.01 from their original retail price.
What Does This Mean?
Well, I would normally say this is an indication that Spanx is getting ready to discontinue their Spanx for Men line.
But, it is also possible that Spanx is making a move to no longer offer them online, and strictly offer them through physical retailers, to drive shoppers into physical retail stores.
My gut tells me is that they are being discontinued. The fact is that while there may have been a lot of excitement about this men’s slimming category many years ago, that excitement fad is now gone.
In my opinion, as it was way back when I first reviewed Equmen, I believe it’s good for a guy to have a couple slimming undershirts available, just in case they want some smoothing or shaping for a special event where they want to look their best.
But, I’ve never felt that guys will replace their entire undershirt inventory with a shapewear version.
And, if you only wear these on occasion, they’re gonna last a really long time.
That means it might take you 5-6 years before you want to buy a new slimming undershirt, and that my friends, wouldn’t be good for a brand such as Spanx, who has to have a certain level of regular sales volume to justify keeping any of their lines.
If Spanx For Men Is Being Discontinued
Well, if it’s true, it could be good news for folks like Underworks, Sculptees, Gyneslim, and others still in this space.
I’ve sent an email to Spanx HQ to find out if their men’s line is indeed being discontinued.
If you’ve heard of or noticed something about this, please let me know about it in the comments section below.
Interesting!! Nice catch that the tab was missing. You think some sort of announcement would have been made. Thanks for posting the info.
Funny you mention this, Tug, because I had the exact same difficulty trying to find the men’s line at Spanx.com too and thought it very weird that Men’s tab wasn’t there. I, like you, ended up searching for mens and found the same paltry selection. I didn’t think much of it other than being weird. Please do keep us posted if Spanx HQ ever gets back to you. Thanks!
heya randy — will keep you posted if i learn anything new from spanx hq!