Recent press releases and articles continue to stress the Utopian future vision for brand owners of direct to consumer relationships and sales. The reality is as always is more nuanced, and that there is no single solution , because current consumer behaviour demonstrates how much they have already embraced multiple shopping channels.
Nestle for instance recently announced they now have 5% of their sales direct, with faster growth rates than offline channels...to me that means in food at least they are just about keeping pace with on line food sales....
If you step back from the hype and consider the evolutionary curve of selling to consumers you might plot the journey thus: "From licks to bricks to clicks" Starting with mail order (licking stamps)-》 to retail outlets both fixed and mobile -》to online ,the odd one out is actually the retail store as it is the only one the consumer has traditionally had to leave home for,even if that is not the case today of course.
Those either side of retail stores in this evolution have therefore often in fact had direct sales..
The difference in today's debate is that is the manufacturer/ brand owners are trying harder to go direct and cut out the traditional middleman,in order to trouser the extra margin... I mean to have relationships with each and every one of their consumers.
Now in the age of supposed consumer indifference it is worth asking to what extent consumers actually want to have direct relationships with brands.... Secondly brand owners will surely need to develop additional new /non core competencies in consumer contact on a massive scale..?
Finally is it not the case that future has already arrived , and that multi channel shopping is simply a must have to meet consumer need states and existing behaviours.... Believe the hype?
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