[D2C tip #1] You need every stakeholder on board

Going direct-to-customer will be one of the biggest moves your brand has made to date. It isn’t as straightforward as creating a website, there’s far more to it than that. Before you can even start building a D2C channel, you need to achieve a full organizational buy-in, and perhaps a tectonic shift in your company’s priorities.

No doubt, you will encounter resistance and internal conflict before you get everyone on board – it’s quite common in large organizations. And you’ll definitely need to generate new investments, hire new people, train your staff with new skill sets and possibly undergo some sort of restructuring and reorganization.

The point that I am trying to make here is that going D2C should not be done half-heartedly. We’ve have seen a myriad of retailers from the past decade who have failed to capitalize on their eCommerce site successfully. They either didn’t prioritize their eCommerce strategy, weren’t properly organized, lacked direction or were just late to the party.