- In the coming years, D2C will play a crucial role in retail and expansion strategy of businesses
- Post-Covid-19, one of the best times for brands to shine in D2C model
- D2C websites allows companies to understand their customer’s need better
Last year, the Covid-19 pandemic created havoc in the industry. Companies faced a decline in their monthly sales figures due to the supply chain hit, extended lockdown, and consumers' preference to stay indoors has led to the disruption across categories. After a few months of lockdown, companies realised uncertainty is the only certainty in business, they have to be prepared for a future Covid-19 like situation which can disrupt the distribution.
D2C businesses manufacture, market, sell and ship their products directly to customer. The channel provide the best results with an ideal platform for such messaging, as well as helps them show substantial reasons to purchase directly:- as it offers differentiation and wider audience, unique shopping experience, and desirable pricing. All such factors have made D2C a very important part of e-commerce in the coming years.
Many companies decided to turn the Covid-19 crisis into a learning experience, and turned to D2C routes to make it a necessity to see revenue grows, this phenomenon increased the number of online shoppers and-sales gradually increased. In the last year, D2C adoption in India has been on the rise as more and more companies are tapping the potential to grow their business.
However, traditional sales distribution of bricks and mortar is not going anywhere but e-commerce will gain its share. Covid-19 forced people to order from the comfort of home and it allowed e-commerce players to create a dominating position for themselves in ecommerce channel of sales. Many Brands decided to build their platforms keeping in mind the possible future trend.
There are brands in India who started their D2C channels for some years now and have retained better customer acquisition but brands like ours who have started their D2C website few months back have the best time to get discovered and acquire a better pie of the results. In just a span of few months we have acquired number of volume orders for our multiple brands like Manforce Condoms, Gas-O-Fast, Safekind, Acnestar and soon Prega News, Health OK and Unwanted 21 will be launched on D2C. All of these products have different market and target audience which have helped our business grow in D2C model also.
There is a lot of potential that lies in the medium. But companies have to invest strategically to build the channel and should offer personalized content to engage with consumers on a meaningful level.
As Covid-19 has transformed consumer behaviour buying patterns, people have become more inclined towards e-commerce to buy daily essentials. This trend indicates a massive opportunity for D2C brands to succeed. The platform can help companies to achieve at least a 15 percent- 25% profit after operating costs. The customers’ proclivity of making regular online purchases have given the industry a huge boost and will continue to do so in the coming years as well.
Just like, traditional methods D2C models also provide companies an opportunity to interact with potential buyers virtually. This further gives organisations a chance to understand their customer’s needs, about their specific demands, and offers the window to engage better with them through emails, apps, and social media.
Not only this, by following a D2C approach in your brand gives you the benefit of tracking and analysing new consumer behaviour. With this methodology, companies will need to address distinguished behavioural patterns between first-time and loyal online consumers to tap them in an effective and customized manner.
This aspect has also led brands to redefine their marketing strategies by giving more impetus to their D2C communication.
To sum up, the future is bright for D2C, brands have realised the important aspect and have started leveraging the medium before it gets too late. Companies are smartly and steadily shifting the core strategies to get more and more customers to get on the brands’ owned channels, increase the margins, and engage them will relatable content at the right time, and drive their e-commerce medium.
