As e-commerce continues to evolve, Scalefast’s latest direct-to-consumer hype report reveals that d-to-c brands that were formerly trendsetters in the retail landscape are blending in as a fundamental, but standard, piece.
According to the report, 32 percent of Americans see no difference in buying from a d-to-c company versus a traditional retailer. This finding is up just slightly from 30 percent in 2021, which doubled from 15 percent in 2020.
To continue to reach consumers, the company notes that many of these e-commerce brands have branded out into offline and wholesale channels. However, as many continue to stay true to being digitally native data from Scalefast’s survey shows top motivators for consumers to make a purchase from a d-to-c brand remain similar from those in years prior.
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For half of the consumers, the top motivator is the brand offering free shipping, followed by 46 percent who said buying from the brand was the cheaper option. Other motivating factors included the brands products being made in the U.S. (39 percent), the brand offering an easy return policy and process (37 percent) and the brand offering a better shopping experience and customer support (33 percent).
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Experience played a huge role in top consumer pain points as well with survey respondents reporting that negative experiences are the ones that stuck with them. The top cited pain point was reported by 30 percent of consumers as being out of stock items followed by 17 percent citing they were starting to receive too much communication from a brand or retailer and 14 percent saying there were no product reviews.
Notably, lack of buy now, pay later options was only reported as a pain point by 4 percent of respondents and not having buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) was only reported by 6 percent of respondents.
According to Scalefast, as these paint points arise, many consumers have started to rethink what they are purchasing online. For some categories, this has meant a rise in preference for purchasing in a physical store including food and grocery (51 percent), apparel (37 percent), footwear and accessories (36 percent), home goods (32 percent) and personal care items (32 percent).
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