Creating A Personalised Experience Through D2C
The consumer appliances industry relies on positive consumer sentiment to ensure brand success. With the growing popularity of ecommerce and an upward trend in the consumers’ interest in online retail, brands across sectors are working towards establishing a direct relationship with customers resulting in increased brand recall and loyalty.
D2C- A win-win for both brands and consumers
D2C model is today considered a win-win for both consumers and brands as it offers the brand the liberty to control and manage things closely, build a personal connection with consumers and provide consumers with direct access to the brands with no intermediary in between.
Adopting a D2C model allows brands to share exclusive marketing offers, a greater hold over the customer life cycle, the opportunity to test and try products directly with consumers, and also increases profitability as there are no intermediaries, retailers, or distributors involved.
Enabling direct communication between the brand and consumers it allows companies to collect valuable customer feedback without any interruptions and provide quick solutions wherever needed. This not only boosts brand loyalty but also makes the customer feel valued resulting in repeat purchases.
Moreover, the D2C model of selling is not only limited to online platforms, brands are also investing in increasing physical presence via company-owned stores promising a better offline shopping experience to consumers.
Physical stores also play an essential role in ensuring the success of the D2C model. Touch and feel is an important elements to impact retail decisions and brick-and-mortar stores help achieve just that. The retail exercise finds completion through the physical presence of the brands.
Challenges
While D2C as a model is grabbing eyeballs and benefitting a lot of brands, there are many who constantly face challenges to keep the business running. Some common challenges are creating awareness and visibility, customer acquisition, and retaining the acquired customers along with other hurdles like providing adequate customer support and planning logistics.
How can brands use D2C effectively?
Some factors that can help companies establish themselves as a successful D2C brand are data collection and data analysis, identifying the target audience, and the right platform/ means to reach them. The sophisticated consumer research mechanisms, data collection and analysis methods, and use of algorithms have helped brands create a personalised space for consumers. Every time a person checks a brand website, their preferences and data are used to generate visibility for the products best suited for them across the online platforms that they use. This creates a connected retail experience for consumers.
With a huge section of the population accessing internet today, a strong presence on digital platforms is inevitable. Creating a unique digital experience for consumers, where they feel connected and engaged.
Therefore, creating a user-friendly website and smartphone application along with regular content updates on social media platforms becomes extremely essential. Further with the growing popularity of social media platforms, influencer marketing has also become an imperative today. Initiating campaigns with influencers having a high follower base and rate of engagement can help brands effectively reach their desired target audience, resulting in increased awareness and a rise in sales eventually. All these factors are very crucial for any brand to succeed in their D2C journey.
While the online presence helps create a personalised experience for consumers, brick-and-mortar stores are also equally important. Experiencing products on a personal account and choosing the perfect fit for the home, continues to be important for contemporary consumers. The physical stores not only help brands expand retail presence across key markets, but they also help establish visibility and strengthen consumer relationships.
Growth of D2C and its future
Over the last few years, there has been tremendous growth that the industry has witnessed when it comes to D2C businesses. As per an industry report by KPMG, currently, there are over 800 D2C brands in India across sectors and the total D2C industry in India is valued at $44.6 billion as of 2021. Riding on the D2C wave many new and existing brands have been able to record exemplary sales and growth.
While companies are now adopting this model across sectors such as fashion, beauty, healthcare, and more, reports suggest that consumer electronics would be the largest D2C segment in the Indian market, with estimated market size of 30.6 billion dollars by 2025, while home décor will be accounting for 5.4 billion USD.
Factors such as an increase in penetration of the internet, increasing disposable income, rise in tech adaptability, and growing aspirations of consumers from Tier 2,3, and4 cities are enabling the growth of D2C retail in India.
Research goes on to show that customers are increasingly demanding personalised shopping experiences and look for unique deals and offers before making a purchase. This makes the D2C model even more important for the times to come as the markets become increasingly competitive and the world is getting ready to adopt digitisation in various facets of life.
*The author is Rakesh Kaul, CEO, and Whole Time Director, Hindware Home Innovation
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