How brands like Vuori, Rothy's and Away have adapted to the new DTC landscape

"Simply having a direct-to-consumer site was still a novelty in certain categories, and the rise of Instagram and Facebook allowed these players to acquire a huge swath of customers at low costs. Since then, the way people search and shop for products has evolved beyond simply discovering a brand through Instagram and rushing to its DTC site to hit "buy.""

""Now what we're seeing is a decentralization," Schinazi said. "The brand is still as important and the product is still fundamental and critical to the overall experience, but we are going to meet the customers where they are." That could mean social commerce, agentic commerce or mobile commerce."

Early direct-to-consumer brands have scaled into larger businesses and adapted their operating models. Social platforms like Instagram and Facebook initially enabled low-cost customer acquisition and made DTC sites a novel channel in many categories. Consumer discovery and purchase behaviors have evolved beyond single-channel social discovery to include multiple commerce pathways. Digitally native brands now face copycat competitors and can leverage technologies such as generative AI. Brands are decentralizing channels and expanding into social commerce, agentic commerce, mobile commerce, wholesale partnerships, and physical retail to meet customers where they are and reinforce product and brand experience.

Read at Digiday