Why Is This The Best Time For Brands To Build Their D2C Enterprise Ecommerce Stores

Does launching a D2C enterprise ecommerce store seem intimidating to you?  Wonder if your brand will be able to make it big in the market on its own? Not sure if your brand can work well and grow in new markets without the support of your supplier-dealer network?

What if we tell you that this is the opportune moment to take the leap of faith and go D2C!

Wonder what makes us make this claim? Check out for yourself:

D2C Trends

• 55% - Buyers show a preference for brand websites over multi brand retailers

• 88% - Growth in orders for brand websites in past 5 years

• 50%- Customers shop from brand websites as they give more detailed information

• 40%- Customers opine they would spend more on consumer brands in the coming five years

• $175 billion- Expected digital D2C sales in the USA by 2023

• $100 billion- Current worth of Indian D2C market

With the global D2C market is expected to register double digit growth in the near future, you certainly don’t want to miss this humongous opportunity of connecting with your customers directly. The forecasts say that the direct-to-consumer sector is all set to outperform its 19.2% growth rate of 2021 in the coming years.

Well, isn’t that reason enough to set up your enterprise ecommerce brand for success!

We bet it certainly is!!

Why Customers Prefer Buying From D2C Websites

Customer behaviour has undergone a sea-change in recent years. Conditioned by their online shopping experiences customers are asking for more. Customers are loyal towards brands and when looking for the products of their preferred brands, they want a more immersive and less distractive experience than they get on marketplaces. 

Here is a list of top reasons why brand D2C websites are favourite shopping stop for buyers:

It is clear from the above chart that customers still give preference to price and free delivery, but there are a variety of other factors that have pushed the buyers towards their favourite brand websites. The overall user experiences and additional benefits offered by enterprise ecommerce brands plays an important role in a customers D2C preference.

Top Reasons To Go D2C With Your Enterprise Brand

Let us check 8 strong reasons to take your enterprise business online by building a D2C enterprise ecommerce store. So let’s learn about them below:

1. Millions of customers are going online

After the pandemic, the growth of online shopping has accelerated because of widespread adoption by households. Whereas, offline shopping declined and sales at brick-and-mortar stores also shrank. The trust of people in online retail has gained momentum after COVID 19. Even the older generation was seen actively placing orders for daily requirements.   

A survey was conducted by LocalCircles, where they interviewed 42,000 consumers living across 358 Indian districts. The result they noticed were as follows :

• 49% of the consumers said they go to ecommerce websites and apps for shopping

• 18% said they prefer home deliveries from local stores

• 31% revealed that they prefer to pick up by visiting malls or retailers or markets

Do you know why the percentage of ecommerce buyers is highest? This is because they trusted in ecommerce stores. The top factors that build their trust are- 

• Safe deliveries

• Low prices

• Heavy discounts

• Faster deliveries

• Convenience

• Easy returns, refunds, and order cancellation

• Wide range of products with transparent product information  

• Content and offers personalization

• Ratings and reviews

• Personal safety and social distancing norms

Take advantage of the rising number of online shoppers by setting up a D2C enterprise ecommerce store. 

Do remember: The early you start, the greater will be the chances of outpacing the market competition.

2. Low costs of operations

Building a D2C enterprise ecommerce store means low operating costs and other overhead costs that eat-up your profits margins. This means that you don’t need to set up a brick and mortar store to reach new customers in new geographies. Here is how you going to save the cost-

• From a business perspective, a D2C enterprise online store does not demand salespeople to capture customers, cashiers to collect payments, or a brick-and-mortar store to showcase your products. 

To further eliminate the cost and time in site maintenance, you can use a  turnkey e-commerce solution that takes away the majority of your development and IT tasks with help inbuilt tools and technology.

• From a customer's perspective, shopping from a D2C enterprise ecommerce will reduce their indirect shopping cost. 

For example, a customer may incur some cost before visiting a physical store i.e. transportation cost (if traveling in a public vehicle) or cost of petrol gas if using their vehicle. Online stores erase inconvenience and travel expenses, to give an outstanding customer experience at home.

• Moreover, opening a D2C ecommerce store also minimizes your transaction costs by streamlining the supply chain and distribution process. 

So when your store expands its product range, more orders can be shipped directly from the wholesaler without involving a middleman.  

3. Reach potential customers anytime, anywhere

Once you set up your enterprise ecommerce site, you can start reaching new customers by creating a marketing campaign via inbuilt marketing tools. 

As you already know, how businesses are leveraging Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google to reach target customers at low cost. 

Unlike traditional advertising platforms like TV ads, billboards, etc which are way too costly for Businesses and results are also uncertain; promoting on digital platforms costs you a few bucks every month and brings the most relevant customers who have shown interest in products like yours.

Using the best ecommerce platform like StoreHippo you can promote your enterprise ecommerce site on Google, Facebook, and other marketing networks that have billions of users every month. 

With SEO tools, you can optimize your website to rank on the first page of Google for keywords that bring customers to your website. 

 4. Better customer support for customer loyalty

Your D2C Enterprise ecommerce website is the best way to communicate with your customer and handle their grievances. Your clients might be looking for some information before they make a buying decision or want to solve a problem with an existing purchase. Let’s explore 3 ways to improve customer service via online store- 

• A real-time chat feature would help your customer in clarifying a query (for example query about returns, stock availability, delivery status) while buying a product

• Second way is to add a widget of "send a query" to your product pages either above or below the customer review section

• Third way is to add an “FAQ section” to your product page so that customers can read answers to commonly asked questions about an item

In a way, you can resolve your customer queries in a matter of seconds without communicating directly to them. 

With StoreHippo integration you can integrate any third-party live chat support plugins within a few clicks. To add FAQ sections on your products pages, you can utilize drag and drop functionality in StoreHippo themes to design and edit page templates.

5. Sell for 24/7 x 365 days in a year

Your offline retail store or wholesale store might not be available 24 hours a day for the customers, but a D2C enterprise ecommerce site will serve your customers 24/7 and 365 days a year, without a salesman. The 24 hours availability may boost your order volume, a number of customers, and online visibility. 

From the customer’s perspective, an "always open" store is like the cherry on the cake because they don’t have to step out and trouble their comfort. 

With the advent of mobile commerce, shopping has become even more flawless and smooth. Now your customers can access your enterprise site and app right from their mobile device. 

6. Fast-track order fulfillment 

Every customer, whether B2C OR B2B, wants quick and error-free delivery of products. They expect delivered products in good condition and nicely packed. Hence, you need a shipping solution that you can integrate with your best ecommerce platform and get a complete overview of orders.  

By partnering with third-party logistics who take care of everything from stocking the inventory to shipping orders straight to the customer’s doorstep, you can fulfill orders efficiently. 

The benefit of outsourcing to 3PLs is that you will have more time to focus on other important aspects of your business like customer service, advertisements, product expansions or launches, customer acquisition, etc.

Fulfill orders with StoreHippo Integrated Shipping solution 

StoreHippo, the best ecommerce platform, comes with an integrated shipping solution i.e. Shipkaro. Shipkaro delivers to 26000+ pin codes across India. Setting up a ShipKaro account is super-simple and costs you ZERO upfront cost. You also get discounted shipping rate, COD support, bulk order upload option, automated delivery, etc.  

7. Sell on multiple channels

Having a D2C enterprise ecommerce store gives you complete control of all ecommerce operations, from order management, marketing to delivery and returns. With that power in hand, you can even customize the customer experience on various channels (website, apps, in-store, Facebook, Email) via omnichannel ecommerce functionality. 

Example of Omnichannel ecommerce

A customer orders and pays for a product online (on the app) after seeing a Facebook ad, and for delivery he chooses the “pick up in-store” option to feel the product in real-time. This type of customer journey can only be done via omnichannel ecommerce, which lets consumers begin and complete purchases on various channels.  Omnichannel ecommerce will personalize the buyer journey by collecting data from various channels i.e. Facebook, website, app, in-store.  

Best ecommerce platforms like StoreHippo supports omnichannel ecommerce, though you can streamline the customer journey by offering a personalized experience on-site, app, in-store, or any other channel.

8. Analytics for better insights

Get data about your customers, monthly sales, orders record, revenue growth, and much more on your D2C enterprise ecommerce site.  By building an ecommerce site, you get accurate data of each customer's behavior (like their interests, age, gender, etc)  and can use that data to personalize their journey. 

You can even integrate your site with Google Analytics, Google Ads, and other advertising platforms to track the leads, sales, purchases, etc performed on your website. 

Ecommerce platforms like StoreHippo have inbuilt data analytics in the admin dashboard, using which you can watch your store performance, organic site visitors, orders, monthly traffic coming from various channels, and more. 

Final takeaways 

Now, I believe you must have got well-informed about the perks of D2C enterprise ecommerce. So here’s a question for you - Does building an enterprise website seem profitable to you? If yes, then I motivate you to take your business online and reach new customers without incurring millions of dollars with the StoreHippo ecommerce platform. 

StoreHippo is a full-featured, best ecommerce platform that offers 250+ advanced features to its users. Some features are multi-vendor marketplace features, integrated payment gateways, and shipping partners, multi-currency, marketing tools, mobile commerce, and many more.

Want exact features to build your enterprise ecommerce website? Get started with StoreHippo’s 14 days free trial to experience its rich feature in real-time.