A channel conflict truce: How direct-to-consumer offerings benefit both brands and retailers

Explores how selling direct-to-consumer (DTC) benefits not only brands who do so, but also the retailers they do business with.

Where to start

In the early days of e-commerce, manufacturers were strongly dissuaded from selling direct out of fear of upsetting relationships with their retail partners. Competing for sales with retail partners was a threat and deemed “channel conflict.” Additionally, selling online was a complicated endeavor, so manufacturers were happy to leave it alone.

Today, however, retailers are much more worried about the threat that Amazon and other major online e-commerce channels bring to their business – Amazon alone controlled 37.3 percent of U.S. eCommerce market share in 2019 according to eMarketer. By comparison, direct sales are relatively insignificant on an...

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