What Retailers Can Learn From DTC Brands

Successful direct-to-consumer businesses have already altered the retail landscape, but the business impact of the coronavirus just expedited industry changes for good. E-commerce adoption has suddenly become the price of entry. With stay-at-home orders in most states forcing many retail stores to close for weeks, if not months, e-commerce has become the channel of choice for consumers. While this growth will taper as more brick-and-mortar stores reopen, this experience will have a lasting effect on consumer habits. E-commerce’s share of total retail sales was already growing quickly, and data from our own retail customers shows orders more than doubled year-over-year for multiple weeks in April. For much of April, order volume was comparable to the biggest shopping days of the year, like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The recent surge in e-commerce growth presents another challenge for large retailers that drive most of their sales through physical stores and the brands that rely on those stores for sales and exposure. That’s why direct-to-consumer retail will play an increasingly important role in the industry’s future, especially now. As retailers figure out how to adapt to this new environment, d-to-c brands offer a playbook for them to follow as they begin the road to recovery. Invest in

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