Will 'New Retail' help D2C brands succeed offline?

Now-established players have learned that Instagram advertisements and influencer campaigns only scale to a point: they can net no more than a few hundred thousand of a brand’s “first best” customers. This has driven a shift toward physical retail and prompted founders to agonize over if and when to peddle their wares on Amazon, making direct to co... See more

A lot of DTC brands, across categories, adopted “reviving the middle” strategy in the form of good quality items at affordable prices and excellent service. The downside of this model is that it’s costly, and most of these brands emulating it are VC-funded and not yet profitable. Scaling this model is also a challenge, as costs of supply, productio... See more

I think this drives at a more fundamental failing by Brandless in particular, that is likely true broadly: the company’s cost structure was completely unsuited for DTC. My strong suspicion — admittedly biased, given Stratechery’s business model — is that the biggest opportunities in DTC are in niches, and the best way to exploit those niches is by ... See more