What is the D2C business model?
The D2C business model involves enterprise brands selling their products or services directly to the customers. Direct-to-customer business model facilitates the brands to eliminate middlemen or intermediaries like distributors, retailers etc and sell directly to the end users. D2C brands can use multiple channels like an online store, mobile app, mobile website etc. to connect with their customers.
By going direct to consumer and eliminating all intermediaries, enterprises can save the middlemen’s margin and sell their products at much lower rates to the end consumers. By selling directly, brands also get a better sense of control over their business’ activities like marketing, supplying, order fulfilment etc. Enterprise brands across all industries can bring disruptive changes and unlock new growth opportunities by building their D2C website and apps.
Why should enterprise brands adopt the D2C business model?
Enterprise brands that aim for expansion and reach to a wider customer base, can tap into the new markets with direct to consumer business models. With internet penetration and smartphones opening up new markets for brands, eliminating middlemen from the supply chain makes it possible for enterprises to boost their profit margin and establish better connections with their customers.
Here is a list of financial, operational and strategic benefits of adopting direct to consumer business model:
Reduce fixed costs and CapEx
Boost profit margins by eliminating intermediaries
Experiment with new business models and growth plans
Better self-control of the brand’s identity with a D2C company
Leverage omnichannel ecommerce by adding multiple customer touchpoints
Create a strong presence in the market
Offer personalized deals and shopping journey for more orders
Get access to customer data to implement data-driven insights
Communicate directly with the customers
With a multitude of benefits the business model offers, more and more enterprise brands today are pivoting to D2C. However, to quickly start their direct to customer journey, enterprise brands need modern D2C e-commerce solutions like StoreHippo. Built for enterprise brands and with support for a variety of business models like B2C, B2B, B2B2C and Direct-to-Customer model, StoreHippo offers enterprise-grade features and plug and play solutions for buisnesses of every scale and size.
What are the challenges of going D2C?
Along with all the benefits the selling directly to the consumers business model offers, it for sure also possesses its own challenges. To be able to overcome these challenges, enterprise brands need to carefully plan their moves and choose the right strategy, service partners etc. Here are a few major challenges that D2C brands face:
Ever changing customer demands and buying behaviours that need business agility to adapt to market trends
Technical infrastructure limitations that prevent brands from opting for innovative solutions for growth
Inability to manage inventory and fulfil order effectively which eventually result in mismanagement and customer dissatisfaction
Difficulty in finding the right technology partner to power the brand
Competing with the existing retailers that have a strong offline presence
Inability to personalize marketing
Difficulty in meeting the D2C customer expectations in respect to fast delivery, offers etc
To overcome the challenges, enterprise brands need to power their business with a well rounded enterprise ecommerce solution like StoreHippo. With StoreHippo’s D2C e-commerce platform brands not only get a feature rich solution but can also integrate with multiple third party software to build innovative solutions. . Modern tools and software can help brands streamline and automate their business processes to carve their own niche in the D2C battleground. StoreHippo builds direct to customer online stores in a cost-effective way with minimal coding requirements.
What are the must-have features to look for in a modern D2C e-commerce platform?
Enterprise brands need to strategically build and run their D2C company. For this they need a modern e-commerce solutions provider that offers the right set of features and tools. For example, a global fashion D2C brand will require advanced features like multilingual and multi-currency websites along with other futuristic features.
Here is a list of must-have features features enterprise brands should look for in a modern D2C e-commerce platform:
Cutting-edge technology to build flexible, agile and scalable ecommerce platform
Order management tools to seamlessly manage orders and track their delivery status etc
Seamless integrations with 3PL , marketing tools, data analytics etc for ease of doing business
Mobile-first technology to leverage m commerce and create mobile apps in few easy steps
Advanced marketing tools that enable brands to offer personalized deals
Omnichannel solutions to help brands interact with customers on multiple touchpoints
StoreHippo has been powering D2C websites across industry verticals. With advanced D2c solutions from StoreHippo, brands can scale their business and manage their day-to-day business activities effortlessly. StoreHippo provides enterprise-level e-commerce features to help brands to explore global markets effortlessly. StoreHippo is built on the next-gen MACH architecture providing fully hosted and managed marketplace solutions.
What makes StoreHippo the best D2C e-commerce solution provider?
With the growing demand for personalizations and direct consumer interactions, businesses are increasingly adopting the most sought after business model, i.e. direct to consumer. StoreHippo, the most flexible e-commerce platform offers solutions to support a variety of enterprise businesses like B2B, B2C, B2B2C, D2C, hybrid etc. It offers 300+ enterprise-grade features and tools to help businesses build enterprise solutions effortlessly.
The intuitive mobile commerce solutions from StoreHippo help direct to consumer businesses tap into the growing mobile sales. With its in-built mobile apps builder, brands can easily create Android and iOS apps at zero additional cost. StoreHippo offers 30+ integrated shipping partners to enable enterprise direct-to-customer brands to automate their shipment processing, deliver in global markets, and seamlessly manage their bulk order deliveries.
StoreHippo enables brands to integrate with multiple third-party marketing and analytics tools. conteWith the help of their customer data and analytics tools D2C e-commerce brands can strategically plan their marketing campaigns and leverage omnichannel marketing to take their sales graph upwards. StoreHippo comes with entities that can be easily customized or extended for the unique requirements of D2C enterprise brands.
Explore a host of D2C enterprise-grade features of StoreHippo by starting your 14-day free trial now.
