#dtc

Feb 6, 2021
7 min

DTC vs Wholesale: Striking the Right Balance

How and where should brands sell in 2021? New best practices are emerging. Supreme made it look easy. From a single store in downtown Manhattan, the streetwear label built a global empire, generating more than $500 million in sales last year almost exclusively through its own stores and website. In December, the brand was acquired by VF Corp. for $2.1 billion. Most brands are not Supreme, or even Reformation or Warby Parker, which have built substantial businesses selling dir

Jan 6, 2021
6 min

How Revolve Pulled Off Its Pandemic Pivot

Revolve had all the signs of becoming one of the pandemic’s early fashion casualties. The coronavirus reached the US just before the spring festival season, the crowded calendar of concerts and parties that in the previous year helped drive nearly one-third of the Los Angeles-based e-commerce retailer’s annual sales. Coachella, where Revolve hosted dozens of influencers for its own elaborate mini-festivals, was cancelled. Plans for tricked out Hamptons houses and scenic Amang

Jan 6, 2021
4 min

DTC Brands are Launching Peer-to-Peer Resale Marketplaces

Fashion resale has rapidly entered the mainstream thanks to the rise of platforms like The RealReal and Thredup and brands are starting to take interest. To date, brands’ direct experience with resale has been limited. Most instead team with an outside platform to facilitate the resale of their products, to avoid managing the logistically complicated process. Due to the middleman, however, the brand takes a smaller cut of each transaction. But DTC fashion brands are making us

Aug 5, 2020
5 min

Digital Wholesale Marketplaces are Competing for Dwindling Business as Brands Move to DTC

Since March, a consistent theme among fashion brands has been moving away from reliance on wholesale partners, in favor of a setup that favors direct sales. Retailers canceled orders and stores were closed, making wholesale less appealing. But with stores set to open back up and retailers beginning to place more orders, the trade show market has seen platforms competing for what’s left of the wholesale business. Physical trade shows like Coterie have dominated the fashion lan

Jul 28, 2020
5 min

Rethinking the Stores of the Future

Brands have been moving online to engage consumers, but with stores reopening, retailers will have to reimagine experiential spaces and a way to limit high-touch services. Retail is far from returning to normal, despite government restrictions worldwide easing. Brands are reassessing the purpose of their stores, while vast numbers close and consumer behaviour shifts. The future retail store, once thought likely to be dominated by large-format flagships in key tourist cities w

Jul 17, 2020
4 min

How the Direct-to-Consumer Shift Accelerated Overnight

In a WWD-produced webinar, Craig Harris, industry principal, apparel, fashion and accessories at Oracle NetSuite, and Billy Thompson, coinventor and president at Thompson Tee, joined WWD executive editor Arthur Zaczkiewicz in discussing the impact the coronavirus pandemic has had on sales and business operations, a shift to direct-to-consumer models from traditional retail and wholesale businesses and the steps Thompson Tee made to successfully pivot during a disruption. The

Jul 16, 2020
3 min

Top 25 DTC Sites: Smaller Brands Thriving Online

At first blush, the top direct-to-consumer brands in the second quarter appear to have little in common. There’s a maker of high-end sandals and a sustainable paint supply brand as well as a children’s apparel brand famed for its stuffed animals that convert into hoodies. But, according to SimilarWeb’s analysis of the traffic and search data, the top brands succeed by being well aligned with the needs of their customers, offering seasonally appropriate products and tapping in

May 26, 2020
4 min

Direct-to-Consumer Brands’ Average Sales Revenue is To Soar 85% by 2020

Direct-to-consumer upstarts like Dollar Shave Club and Kylie Cosmetics sold stakes in their businesses to Unilever and Coty, respectively, but most DTC brands are not seeking billion-dollar valuations or quick flips to bigger incumbents, new research from the Interactive Advertising Bureau found. According to the research from the IAB, digital advertising’s biggest trade group, an overwhelming majority of DTC disruptors (90%) report they are profitable, are looking to expand

May 21, 2020
2 min

Building A Brand In the Direct-to-Consumer Era

MADE Trends introduces "Building A Brand In the Direct-to-Consumer Era". This presentation is a guide for brands looking to expand direct sales channels or simply take inspiration from a new generation of marketers. We’re living in the age of the direct-to-consumer brand. Originally exemplified by disruptors like Glossier and Everlane, the term “DTC” has largely become shorthand for a brand that targets millennial consumers using a strategy that includes an emphasis on brand

May 12, 2020
3 min

Poll: In A Quarantine-driven Surge, “new essentials” Are Gaining Traction Through E-commerce

The ongoing global pandemic has created an air of uncertainty for e-commerce businesses, not to mention for non-essential retailers who have been forced to shut their doors. Yet some businesses are still booming according to Klaviyo’s COVID-19 Insights. The underlying data of these insights come from 32,500 brands, billions of e-commerce transactions and survey data from over 6,000 respondents. Through a combination of daily consumer and brand polls, in-depth conversations wi

May 5, 2020
7 min

How to Go From Wholesale to Direct-To-Consumer

For apparel labels reliant on multi-brand retailers for sales, developing a direct business has never been more important. But how can you go DTC in the middle of the pandemic? Here’s BoF’s guide to pivoting online during a time – and cash – crunch. Audrey McLoghlin was preparing her largest wholesale shipments of the year for her two labels, Frank & Eileen and Grayson, when cancellations started to come in a month-and-a-half ago. Now, spring and summer merchandise originally

Feb 19, 2020
4 min

As the DTC Space Gets More Competitive, Branding Agencies Are Forced To Evolve

For Sierra Tishgart, co-founder of cookware startup Great Jones, Pentagram was the agency that designed Great Jones’ logo, website and packaging. But since then, Tishgart and her co-founder, Maddy Moelis have gone back to Pentagram to do everything from craft a pitch deck to help them make recipe pamphlets. Startups are leaning on agencies to help them do more than ever before. Red Antler, which, as a branding agency did work for Casper and Allbirds, launched a performance ma

Feb 19, 2020
3 min

How Digital-first Lingerie companies Aimed To Attract Shoppers Ahead of Valentine’s Day

Leading up to Valentine’s Day, digital native and direct-to-consumer lingerie brands revamped their digital advertising strategies to capitalize on holiday sales. “We’ve been around for a while now, and space is clearly getting more crowded. So being smart and creative around Facebook ad spend becomes that much more important,” said Ranjan Roy, head of content at Adore Me. “We wanted to figure out how [to] not get caught up in just bidding [for customer attention] with every