A D2C shop is the brand's own online store, its website or app, where it sells directly to the people who use its products. No retailer or platform sits in between, so the brand owns the customer relationship, the first-party data and the margin.
See this week's updatesReach can come from many places, but the relationship has to live somewhere the brand controls. The own shop is the one place where a brand knows who bought what and when, and can act on it: welcome flows, replenishment reminders, loyalty and personalised offers.
That is how a first order becomes repeat purchases, and repeat purchases become lifetime value and profitability.
The D2C shop is the hub. The spokes (social, agentic and marketplaces) bring reach, discovery and volume. The hub turns that reach into known customers and lifetime value.
It also gives back what the spokes run on: product data and feeds for AI agents, content and UGC for social, and pricing and bundle tests for marketplaces.
of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions, and 76% get frustrated when this does not happen.
McKinsey & Company, Next in Personalization 2021of consumers said personalized communications made them more likely to repurchase from a brand.
McKinsey & Company, Next in Personalization 2021revenue lift is what personalization most often drives, with company-specific lift spanning 5 to 25%.
McKinsey & Company, 2021more profit from raising customer retention rates by 5%, in research by Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company.
Harvard Business Review, 2014Amazon is trying to build an empire, and Shopify is trying to arm the rebels.
7 updates and this week's reading list on D2C Shops - The Hub, every item linked to its source.