The shorthand of direct-to-consumer (D2C) might boil down to selling through a brand’s own website or brick-and-mortar location. But writ large, the model is about controlling the customer relationship.
Consumer brands poured resources into owned channels, betting that higher margins, richer customer data and stronger loyalty would outweigh the costs of acquiring customers themselves.
Recent events across retail suggest that calculation is changing. Several of the companies that helped define the D2C era have spent the past few years abandoning the idea that growth depends on steering every customer into owned channels.
By way of example, mattress seller Casper ultimately agreed to go private after years of struggling to produce sustainable returns as a public company.
SmileDirectClub entered bankruptcy.
Most recently, Allbirds agreed to sell assets and focus on artificial intelligence.
While each company faced its own challenges, together they illustrate a broader lesson. Building a recognizable brand and building an efficient distribution model are not necessarily the same exercise.
Nike’s fourth-quarter earnings results released Tuesday (June 30) provided the latest and perhaps clearest indication that even the industry’s largest brands are recalibrating the balance between owned channels and wholesale distribution. During the quarter, Nike Direct revenue fell 9%, including a 12% decline in Nike Digital, while wholesale revenue increased 1%. In North America, wholesale revenue climbed 10% as the company continued rebuilding relationships with retail partners.
“The integrated marketplace is one of our most important areas of transformation,” Nike President and CEO Elliott Hill said during a Tuesday earnings call. “We’ve been rebuilding our wholesale relationships, expanding our outreach and improving how we show up across channels.”
Hill outlined a strategy in which owned stores, digital channels and wholesale partners each contribute to the customer relationship. He also said Nike is “discounting less on Nike Digital” while continuing to invest in stores that fit its long-term strategy.
The broader read-across extends beyond Nike. As digital advertising costs have increased and consumers have become more willing to compare prices across retailers, marketplaces and brand sites, the economics of insisting that every purchase occur through an owned channel have become less compelling.
Brands still want first-party data. They still want loyalty. They still want recurring engagement. However, they arguably appear less concerned about whether the transaction itself occurs on a proprietary website.
Relationships Matter More Than Channels
PYMNTS Intelligence’s latest “Global Digital Shopping Index,” commissioned by Visa Acceptance Solutions, found that merchants’ own mobile apps remain their strongest individual growth channel, with 57% reporting higher sales over the past year. At the same time, websites, physical stores, third-party marketplaces and delivery platforms all generated growth for roughly half of merchants surveyed.
The message is that consumers are buying wherever it is most convenient, and merchants are adapting by investing across all of them.
Merchants’ mobile apps generally offer a better shopping experience. Merchants are more likely to provide biometric authentication, digital wallet autofill, stored credentials, one-click checkout and QR code payments inside their apps than on their websites. Those capabilities reduce friction, shorten checkout and make repeat purchases easier. Ensuring that loyalty accounts, payment credentials and personalized offers recognize the customer are critical wherever that customer chooses to shop.
Consumers are growing more deliberate about spending. PYMNTS Intelligence’s latest research on household spending found that roughly two-thirds of consumers are trimming purchases or actively looking for ways to reduce everyday expenses. Under these conditions, shoppers are less inclined to remain loyal to a single retailer or website. They compare prices, search across multiple merchants, and expect checkout to be fast and familiar regardless of where they complete the purchase.
Brands face changing D2C economics. Customer acquisition costs have risen, and forcing every shopper into an owned channel risks sacrificing reach at a time when consumers are moving fluidly among retailer websites, marketplaces, social commerce and physical stores. The objective becomes preserving first-party relationships even when distribution broadens.
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