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- 🛍 DTC Daily - Thursday, Feb 2
🛍 DTC Daily - Thursday, Feb 2
Today's DTC news, tips, & tools you need to know
💵 1 - Now is an excellent time to emphasize affordability
📰 TL;DR - Modern Retail spoke to several brands that are switching up their marketing to focus on affordability amid inflation. Fashionphile, for example, is a luxury resale platform that is now leaning into emphasizing how much shoppers can save compared to buying items brand new. Prior to now, their marketing was more about not having to endure the typical wait times for luxury pieces.
💡 Insight - This trend has been popping up a lot lately. With prices sky-high everywhere (have you seen the price of eggs?), shoppers are looking for opportunities to cut back on spending. This is a good time to look at your own marketing campaigns and see how you can incorporate messages about affordability, discounts, or how your product is cheaper than your competitors.
👁 2 - 9 DTC brands to watch
📰 TL;DR - Retail Dive put together a list of 9 emerging DTC brands to keep an eye on in 2023. Click below for the full list but some common themes seem to be:
Precision customization options
"Clean" skin and hair care
Gourmet food products with a strong story
💡 Insight - The advice I keep seeing for 2023 is you really need to find your unique value proposition. What makes your brand different? What values do you have? All these brands have something that sets them apart. Study them and think about what a write-up for your own brand would look like in a list like this.
🧁 3 - Should your food brand be in retail or DTC?
📰 TL;DR - DTC food brands seem to have exploded in popularity, but what are the advantages of DTC for food products in particular? This piece goes over why the DTC model works for some brands, including higher potential profit, controlled growth, and more control over marketing. Also a major point: smaller sales. For retail, you're selling huge amounts at a time but DTC allows you to start with less inventory.
💡 Insight - Food is such an interesting area for e-commerce since there's already a well-established path to retail via grocery and specialty stores. Both are viable options but DTC has its own challenges and advantages. What I'm seeing more is DTC brands moving to retail once they reach a certain level of growth. If you can do both, why not?
🥄 4 - Magic Spoon continues its move to retail
📰 TL;DR - Speaking of food brands, DTC cereal darling Magic Spoon is broadening its retail reach by launching in 6,800 more retail stores. Magic Spoon can already be found in Target but now it's coming to Walmart, Kroger, and Albertsons locations. The brand markets itself as a premium better-for-you breakfast option and has raised more than $100 million in funding.
💡 Insight - If you're a DTC e-commerce brand, you should absolutely be studying Magic Spoon's meteoric rise. They managed to reinvent a pantry staple and grew to a million customers before even touching retail. Their path suggests that DTC is totally viable for food brands and that retail doesn't have to be part of your initial plans.
📬 5 - Etsy is very serious about its return policy changes
📰 TL;DR - Last year, Etsy made a move to standardize how sellers on the platform handle returns. Sellers must choose from a list of pre-made return policies, set by Etsy itself. Prior to that, every seller was able to set their own unique policy to match their own unique situation. Apparently, some sellers had their return policies grandfathered, but it looks like that's now going away.
💡 Insight - It's easy to see why Etsy wants a standardized set of return policies instead of a hodgepodge, especially if they're competing with marketplaces like Amazon where buyers know exactly what to expect. While potentially annoying, this could be a good thing for Etsy sellers because it raises the standards of customer care and trust.
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