It's become one of the most talked-about subjects in the DTC world: one of the biggest challenges brands face today is the rising cost of customer acquisition, particularly on digital channels like Facebook and Google. But, the customer acquisition challenges DTC brands face goes beyond cost, and as such, it will take more than just an advertising channel offering low CPMs to win them over.
As Trump's increased China tariffs continue to take a toll on the US economy, many smaller DTC businesses are faced with some tough choices. But for most, it's not simply as easy as moving manufacturing out of the country.
Target's strategy of using its stores to fulfill orders placed online continue to drive an increase in both digital sales and foot traffic. Now, as Target has remodeled the majority of its stores to ensure they can effectively serve as fulfillment centers, its eyeing additional investments in automation and employee training to ensure it can keep up with digital sales growth.
ThredUp just raised $175 million, and has big plans to scale. One of its strategies focuses on partnerships with big retailers. While the online clothing resale company describes this as a new platform, it's more of a way to gain more widespread recognition.
One potential effect of Brexit: The rise in fake, grey market goods. A retail expert at Geometry U.K. says that if Britain leaves the U.K. with no deal, prices of products will rise, which means that unauthorized resellers will flourish.
Barneys New York’s chief digital and technology officer Katherine Bahamonde Monasebian says that the reason Barneys filed for bankruptcy were complicated. But at the crux of the problem was a change in how people view department stores, which used to be the “center of the community.”
When Subway’s most prominent spokesman suddenly became a reviled felon, its next ad campaign traded scale for brand safety. Four years later, many brands are still struggling to be brand-safe without insulating themselves from favorable audiences.
TJ Maxx has been slow to invest in its website and e-commerce offerings, even as other retailers get into the off-price game and threaten to take away some of its market share. Its parent company, the TJX Companies, has been one of the few retailers to consistently post same-store sales growth over the past year. But that sales growth hasn't come on the back of significant investments in e-commerce.
Marketers gravitate to opportunities that are available through Facebook and Google, but these closed ecosystems are creating challenges for those seeking transparency in their ad spend — and can even lead to customer alienation.
SmileDirectClub will soon be one of the few companies that started as an online-only, direct-to-consumer startup to make it to the public markets, setting the bar for what it will take for other DTC companies, particularly in the health care industry, to go public. On Friday SmileDirectClub -- which sells teeth alignment kits direct-to-consumer -- made its confidential IPO filing public, revealing that the company generated $423 million in revenue in 2018, with a net loss of $74.8 million.
Target just announced a new private label grocery brand, Green & Gather. While the company offers numerous private labels, this marks Target's attempt to retool its overall grocery strategy.
Enterprise companies are seeking different kinds of strategic partnerships in the digital age. According to new research, marketers say factors such as influencers, social ambassadors and affiliates have made referrals more important than immediate transactions.
Younger brands that built social responsibility into their businesses from the beginning are establishing new brand-purpose playbooks that demonstrate how a cause or mission can penetrate a company – in spite of its inherent capitalist nature – beyond a marketing campaign, demonstrating instead a dedication to social responsibility.
As Shopify has grown, it's expanded its services to new areas – some of which its third party developers already had their hands in. This creates for a difficult tension; The platform needs to scale and expand, but also relies on a robust community of developers.
In January, Pinterest created a new sales team that was tasked with figuring out how they can get younger startups, particularly direct-to-consumer brands, to spend more money on the platform.
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