Consumers are craving more intimate relationships with brands. They’re cutting out the matchmakers, the go-betweens, the middlemen and going straight to the source of their desire, the brand itself. This Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) model has proliferated due to the rise of online and digital platforms. Consumers are less interested in third party retailers as brands no longer need to rely on these retailers to warehouse, display and distribute their products. This new D2C model, one that wasn’t even possible a decade ago, is changing the face of retail.
This new intimate relationship between brands and consumers is growing hotter and heavier. Consumers have more exclusive access and are craving more from brands who are happy to oblige in the form of more personalized and desirable products. Brands can experiment more freely as they receive more immediate feedback from the crowd. This new line of communication is spurring new modes of convenience in buying.
Years ago, no one would think of buying a mattress online before trying it out. Today, mail-order companies like Casper, Leesa and Purple are thriving with minimal brick and mortar outlets. Trial periods, easy return policies, and referral incentives have created an environment of not only convenience but of trust among consumers. This level of trust typically took years for brands to develop, as they also had to rely on the middlemen as the messengers.
Millennials followed by GenZ want to spend less time in brick and mortar thus favoring social media purchases and direct to home retail experiences. The ability for brands able to deliver their product, in the least amount of time, with minimal effort on the consumer’s part, is key to the success for a D2C relationship.
This D2C environment has spurred a rise in specialization. Nearly any item can be purchased from Amazon in a relatively quick and easy manner, but it can be an overwhelming experience. Trying to find the right item can be painstaking. There is an abundance of options cluttering your brain with distractions, with users often getting hijacked to other products that were not in the original search.
A successful D2C model succeeds in the same way that Brooklyn has become the world’s symbol for bespoke, curated, and direct to consumer community. It’s the artisanal quality of a made to order mattress or the unique personality of a Dollar Shave Club that help create a bond with the consumer. They make the one item that their fanbase wants, when and how they want it, further building an intimate relationship between consumer and brand.
This relationship is killing advertising, as consumers want to discover and seek out what they desire versus being yelled at, coerced or bribed by pop-ups, and ad rolls.
Platforms like Instagram, SnapChat and Dropp.TV build on this rise of intimacy created by D2C and embed purchase opportunities into entertaining content.
Instagram shopping gives brands access to 100 million plus daily active users. Brands can tag images with “shoppable” hotspots that allow the user to checkout with IG creating less friction to purchase.
Consumers can now use Snapchat to shop on Amazon. It’s simple, a perfect marriage of technology and demographics, which could really boost traffic directly to the retailer’s website from the app’s more than 190 million daily active users.
Snapchat users simply hold up their mobile device, scan an image or barcode and snap a photo. If it’s available on Amazon, a card will appear and the user can click through to Amazon, review and buy. The program is currently being slowly rolled out and tested.
Dropp.TV’s “See it. Want it. Get it.” technological eco-system was built to enhance the impact of media through Ai/ML/AR and computer vision. Imagine watching a music video and simply purchasing your favorites artist’s merch without having to leave your video or having to jump through search engine hoops.
Entertainment and commerce have always intermingled but in this new D2C landscape, Dropp.TV has not only reimagined the marketplace but has built it. The user journey from desire to purchase, to owning has condensed down to a single point and click. Brands need to be at the right place at the right time to earn that point and click, and that place is at the initial spark of desire. Content drives the desire, so it is the most logical evolution for commerce to give consumers the ability to purchase from within the video itself.
As the future of retail merges with the future of entertainment and content creation, innovative technology is poised to create the perfect storm for D2C.
