D2C Start-ups have recently emerged with a whole new perspective of empowering men and women to help them with their daily struggles starting from groceries to wellness, fitness to personal care to beauty and so on. They can get access to daily needs without getting off the comfort of home.
After Covid-19, the rise of new-age D2C brands have become a helping hand for a lot of people. Many people suffer from medical conditions which don’t allow them to easily get out of their house. This helps working professionals greatly as well because they do not need to get out in the market to search for their daily needs after a tiring day of work. In today’s world, every person is busy with their own work which doesn’t always allow them to shop offline. New-age D2C Start-ups are helping to solve the problems in this area. And that also at a very reasonable cost.
Since the pandemic, online form seems to rule out the offline way of getting things done. In this scenario, generally consumers prefer the online mode for their requirements. Moreover, they prefer this because of the time and flexibility of the purchase it provides. They can take unlimited time to choose from various options to ensure getting the current product. This has given a huge opportunity for the D2C brands to increase their reach and potential to serve consumers from all across the globe.
This has nudged the brands to go for the D2C route. They have learnt to sell their products from their own web platforms, social media and retail stores rather than collaborating with different marketplaces.
The D2C way of brands has given them a huge advantage over finances. They offer benefits of low costs and provide easy delivery options. The products that reach the consumers are of comparatively high quality. This ensures a sense of trust to develop with the consumers. Nowadays, with people mostly shopping online, there has been a sudden dip which is seen in the offline stores. This has pushed many brands to come up with new strategies which can gain customer attention along with brand loyalty. Hence, to adapt to a customer-centric approach which will make their consumers feel a lot of importance and will in return increase brand loyalty, many brands are moving for a hybrid approach which will provide online access as well along with the existing offline one. Establishing a strong online presence is a must to gain customer attention.
Eliminating any third-party middleman has resulted in a surge of extra profit for the businesses as well. Inefficiency in the delivery process has also reduced to a minimum. A brand has control over all departments starting from supply chain to marketing to finances which makes the brand stronger as a team. This has increased integrated sales opportunities through different cross-platforms. One space can be utilized for multiple activities such as brand promotion, sales, marketing campaigns, distribution, along with developing an emotional touch with the customers.
This helps brands to come up with personalized marketing and to gain a new and personalized customer base which increases the longevity of the brand.
E-commerce has given a huge chance for new D2C brands to emerge and take over spaces which are not yet covered by other brands. With an ever-growing world, new sets of needs always seem to emerge from the consumers which gives a huge opportunity for the brands to come up with new and better innovations and to gain a sense of trust with the consumers via social media platforms and advertisements which has a more realistic approach than previously used. This allows the brand to develop a more loyal set of consumers. Through the influencer culture getting awakened day by day, even brands tend to take the shape of influencers who allow the consumers to follow them for their day-to-day activities. This helps them to keep up with the continuity of their product sellings.
Recent statistics show that the main objective of all the brands is to expand their e-commerce platforms in order to capture their individual growing markets to explore upcoming opportunities in the growing D2C world. D2C is not only helping the brands to have a global reach and presence but is also helping them to reach untapped markets in urban and rural areas as well.
Due to the work from home culture, people have started to settle in tier 2 and tier 3 cities which provide a lesser cost of living than urban cities. In order to serve tier 2 and tier 3 demands, D2C and E-commerce have helped a lot in recent years.
Moreover, through their online presence, brands get a chance to collect a huge chunk of consumer data which allows them to personalize their branding and improve their product quality according to the demand.
This two-way communication through social media and product reviews has allowed brands to drastically improve their products and serve their consumers according to their needs and preferences. This allows a 360 degree approach to their communication process.
All in all, D2C has a huge advantage to boost sales along with cost and time efficiency measures. Since consumers are the most important in the business, the new approach allows them to provide over-the-top personalized experiences to their customers. International delivery has also become possible for the brands. Hence, D2C is not just an option for the brands to choose, rather it has become a necessity for the brands to adapt in order to compete and survive with other similar competitors who are always ready to take over their places.
(The author is Mr. Aanan Khurma, Co-Founder & CEO of Wellversed, and the views expressed in this article are his own)
