The logic of D2C was simple: cut the middleman, own the customer relationship, keep the margin. It worked, until customer acquisition costs on Meta and Google stopped making sense.
Digital CAC tripled between 2021 and 2023. Brands that built entirely online found themselves paying more to acquire a customer than that customer was worth in year one. The only way out: physical retail, where the brand pays for shelf space once and earns from footfall daily.
The irony is real. Brands built to disrupt retail are now the ones signing agreements with Reliance Retail and Modern Bazaar.
The smarter D2C founders saw this coming. SUGAR went offline in 2018; four years before most. Wakefit opened experience centres long before its digital growth plateaued.
The new D2C playbook is omnichannel from day one. Online to discover, offline to convert, both to retain.
