Direct-to-Consumer Business Model

What is a direct-to-consumer business model

A direct-to-consumer business model is where the enterprise brand manufactures (on its own or through partners) and sells its products directly to consumers. It helps the enterprise brand eliminate the middleman, retailers, etc to reach the end customers directly. These D2C brands use a number of channels to reach their customers like online stores, mobile apps, mobile ecommerce websites, etc. 

As the brands eliminate the middlemen from their sales cycle, they save on the middlemen’s margin and sell their products to the end consumers at a much lower price. The D2C brand's business flow is different from the traditional businesses. Here is the D2C business model flow:

Brand/Manufacturer -> Digital stores -> End customers

Going D2C can bring a host of benefits for businesses looking forward to solidifying brand presence and building customer loyalty. 

What are the benefits of a direct-to-consumer business model

With a D2C business model, enterprise brands can reach a wider audience and tap into the markets that were otherwise unexplored. Since each customer has access to the internet and a smartphone today, reaching the end users directly has become possible for brands. Going D2C can be the best strategy for brands aiming for unprecedented growth.

Here are a few benefits of adopting the D2C ecommerce route for businesses: 

• Reduce fixed costs and CapEx
• Boost profits by eliminating intermediaries
• Experiment with new business models and growth strategies 
• Better control of the brand’s identity
• Leverage omnichannel ecommerce by adding multiple customer touchpoints 
• Create a strong presence in the market 
• Offer personalized deals and shopping journeys to boost orders
• Get access to customer data to implement data-driven strategies 
• Communicate directly with the end-users of the product 
• Pass cost benefits to customers as discounts to win their loyalty
• Faster time to market with direct channels to go to the customer

The D2C business model offers a host of benefits to the enterprise brands. However, to enjoy the benefits and go to the market with their D2C websites, brands need a robust and future-ready D2C solution like StoreHippo. With enterprise-grade features and plug-and-play solutions, StoreHippo offers the best solution for businesses from various industries. 

What are the challenges of building a direct-to-consumer business model

D2C business model has many benefits but comes with its own set of challenges. Enterprise brands need to identify these challenges and plan strategies and steps to overcome these challenges right from the start.

Here are a few major challenges of the direct-to-consumer model:

• Business agility to be able to adapt to the ever-changing customer needs and buying behaviors 
• Technical infrastructure limitations might prevent brands from going for innovative strategies 
• Difficulty in managing inventory and fulfilling orders effectively 
• Tough to find the right technology to power the D2C brand
• Creating a niche for brand amidst existing competition 
• Inability to offer personalized marketing solutions
• Tough to meet the D2C customer expectations like fast delivery, multiple offers etc. 

Coping with the above challenges might be tough for brands unless they find a robust ecommerce solution. To be able to overcome these challenges, brands need a well-rounded ecommerce platform like StoreHippo. It comes with a host of tools and features that help brands build direct-to-consumer online stores and overcome the majority of challenges related to technical and operational aspects of their D2C transition.

StoreHippo has powered many D2C websites across industry verticals with its advanced D2C ecommerce solutions. It comes with the following features to help brands easily transition to a direct-to-customer business model. Here are a few unique features offered by D2C solutions from StoreHippo:

• Decoupled headless architecture to help enterprise brands build tailor-made ecommerce solutions 
• Omnichannel solutions to easily add new customer touchpoints
• Built-in product management system to easily add, delete or manage bulk products in a few clicks
• Multiple payment gateways to offer a frictionless payment process to the customers
• Go global solutions to help brands expand their business beyond borders
• Hyperlocal ecommerce support to built multiple location-specific D2C websites
• Easy frontend and backend customizations to offer a personalized user experience  
• Scalable solution that supports fast-growing businesses
• Integrated shipping solutions to help create a seamless supply chain                         

With the above features and much more, brands can gain an edge over their competition and plan a systematic growth of their businesses. 

What makes StoreHippo the best solution provider for direct-to-consumer business model

StoreHippo is the most flexible ecommerce platform that offers solutions to power direct-to-consumer business model for enterprise brands. Built on the next-gen MACH architecture, StoreHippo provides fully hosted and managed D2C solutions to help businesses go to the market in record time.

StoreHippo offers an intuitive mobile commerce solution to help the D2C brand leverage mobile sales. With its in-built mobile apps builder, brands can easily create Android and iOS mobile apps directly from the dashboard at zero additional costs. The online stores created by StoreHippo are PWA stores that look, feel, and work like mobile apps even on entry-level devices with poor internet connectivity. It helps brands reach and connect with audiences across metros and tier 3 and beyond cities. 

The future-ready ecommerce platform is designed with headless architecture allowing brands to create omnichannel customer touchpoints. Brands can quickly add new touchpoints using the same backend logic, and APIs. StoreHippo helps businesses build multi-vendor marketplace (helpful when D2C brands want to keep using their distributor network), multi store D2C websites, multilingual websites, and other out-of-box ecommerce solutions with its 300+ enterprise features quickly. 

The fully integrated ecommerce platform comes with 100+ integrations for logistics, payment gateways, ERP, CRM, POS systems, marketing software etc. With the powerful in-build discount engine, brands can implement multi-level discounts to attract and convert buyers. The SEO-friendly platform helps D2C ecommerce brands to optimize their online stores for better SERP rankings and boost their organic traffic. 

Ready to leverage the direct-to-consumer business model and take your business to new heights of success?? Explore StoreHippo’s D2C ecommerce platform by starting your 14-day free trial now.