Our key takeaways

We know that the impact of the pandemic has increased the importance of D2C for the majority of companies. It has the attention of C-Suite and as we have seen, it is a base expectation of customers today. Companies without a D2C capability will struggle to build meaningful and value-based customer relationships – risking long-term business growth. Particularly over the last 12 months we have seen an explosion in companies building D2C capability – and we expect this to continue for the foreseeable future.

As we have discussed throughout this article, we believe that social should form an integral part of any D2C strategy. We see strong evidence of a generational divide, and we expect the importance of social media to sales to grow over time as a result. In applying the findings of our research, we believe organisations should be mindful that:

• Consumer confidence in social as a sales channels is growing. We expect this growth to continue rapidly, and we believe direct selling through social should be a part of a successful D2C strategy.
• Large brands can learn from the local experience. Customers are more likely to buy from a smaller organisation or start up through social. We believe that part of this is driven through the ‘humanisation’ of these experiences.
• The conversion of physical and digital remains imperative but hard to crack. We know customers respond well to a ‘local’ physical experience and still struggle with elements of the online experience. It is important that any D2C strategy considers how digital and physical experiences can augment each other to better meet customer needs.
• Behaviour splits by age: Any product or service aimed at the 18-34 market should be ‘social first’, with an increased focus on the channel against other eCommerce platforms like a website. This is particularly in light of emerging features, such as native checkout in the UK.

Our team would be delighted to discuss any of the points raised in this article – and watch out for the next article in our D2C series, which will focus on how organisations can successfully execute on a D2C strategy.