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White label delivery is the next frontier for alcohol brands. While marketplaces like DoorDash and Drizly have dominated booze delivery during the recent boom, some brands are building out their own DTC channel via compliancy platform Thirstie.
Just weeks after Allbirds and Warby Parker filed to go public, online wine club Winc followed suite. The company, founded in 2011, is betting on an IPO to help it scale its DTC and wholesale operations as it attempts to gain market share.
Last week, Modern Retail hosted its first multi-day event since 2019, where executives from companies like Mars, Olipop, Made In and Exploding Kittens gathered to talk about what was top of mind for them at their respective businesses. The big takeaway from the event is that what it takes to successfully run and scale an e-commerce startup has been upended over the past 18-plus months.
Fire pit maker Solo Stove had such explosive growth in 2020, that the company's owners decided to raise capital, pivot into an e-commerce holding company and as of last week, filed to go public. The company is betting that after gaining a huge swath of new, loyal customers during the pandemic, it can parlay that into continued success.
Over the past year, store openings were few and far between -- with the exception of some pop-ups -- as direct-to-consumer startups decided to direct their focus to their e-commerce channel. But within the past week, a few startups like Parade and Studs have announced significant new funding rounds, with the express purpose of opening more stores.
With Black Friday less than two months away, direct-to-consumer brands are starting to finalize their holiday marketing strategies. One big question on many founders' minds this year, is just how much they need to rethink their initial plans in a post iOS14 landscape. The answer for many brands seems to be: spend less on Facebook and Instagram than they were initially planning.
The alcohol e-commerce boom is driving online wine clubs to ramp up their personalization tools. With thousands of wine SKUs on hand, digital wine club Firstleaf developed a machine learning model to help narrow down each customer's suggestions. The process, according to the company, has helped increase revenue and boost retention over the years.
Nordstrom is making a significant push into home goods with the help of buzzy brands including direct-to-consumer startups. Its latest partnership with weighted blanket brand Bearaby means it now has ties with more than 17 companies in the category. In addition, it’s preparing to open an extended, two-story home goods section at its flagship NYC branch.
Over the past year, there's been an explosion of holding companies raising money to acquire e-commerce brands -- Pattern Brands, for example raised $60 million in debt and equity to acquire brands in the home goods space. But one of the most interesting -- and newest entrants -- in the space is OpenStore. The company's co-founder spoke about the booming industry of e-commerce holding companies.
When CPG startup Brightland launched in 2018, it launched with just two products: two different varieties of olive oil. Since then, the company has expanded its product line to include four different flavored olive oils, two different varieties of vinegar and this week, launched a line of honey. Brightland typically partners with other companies, and does limited-edition runs, in order to test out new products.
There's a new sought-after investor for tech startups that serves a lot of direct-to-consumer brands -- and it isn't a traditional private equity or venture capital fund. It's Shopify. That was made clear last week, when Shopify announced that it invested in Yotpo.
Workwear has long been dominated by big players, such as Dickies, Carhartt and Duluth. While other apparel categories have been taken over by digitally-native brands, workwear had remained stagnant until now. A new crop of DTC startups want to change that.
Brands are raising money, and venture capitalists have seemingly endless money to throw at them. And it's happening at a record pace. It's a big change from a little over a year ago, when DTC brands were said to be facing a reckoning.
The weekly "drop" is quickly becoming a major release tactic among direct-to-consumer food brands. Take for instance, Last Crumb, a luxury cookie brand that launched in May and has a growing lottery-like waitlist of eager customers. The weekly release method, long used by streetwear and sneaker brands, is being applied to the food space.
Direct-to-consumer startups have now been grappling with manufacturing delays, increased prices of raw materials and astronomical costs for shipping containers for close to a year and a half now. And the challenges show no signs of subsiding.
Individual brands are copying the Amazon aggregator model and trying to scoop up their own marketplace sellers. The addition of CBD brand Grove underscores that interest in the Amazon aggregator business model is spreading -- but that doesn’t mean established companies are rushing to acquire marketplace products quite yet.
Read MoreAt the Modern Retail Summit, retail marketers will discuss everything from the Amazon effect to new infrastructure to the shift in the direct-to-consumer world.
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