Like pieces of a puzzle scattered across multiple sales channels, inventory presents both a challenge and an opportunity. Direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands face immense challenges when it comes to inventory management, leading to significant inefficiencies and costs.

First and foremost, most D2C brands have extremely high overhead costs associated with managing inventory across multiple sales channels. Second, they must aggregate and synchronise inventory data across their online store, retail locations, modern markets and more.

Marking a shift towards physical retail, pure-play online D2C brands have stepped up their offline presence by adopting an omni-channel approach. However, entering offline retail comes with challenges, including adapting product assortments and building trust with trade participants.

The Inventory Conundrum

Seeing that the only constant in commerce is change, D2C brands stand poised on the brink of new adaptations. Today, manual processes like spreadsheets, siloed systems, and employee guesswork make D2C inventory management highly inefficient.

Without real-time visibility and integrated data, D2C brands cannot make data-driven decisions. Ultimately, the D2C inventory struggle results in lower revenue, unhappy customers, and significant costs. This leads to wasted inventory, as items sell out in one channel before another channel is updated.

Quantifying India’s D2C potential

According to CII, the D2C market in India is poised to be $60B by FY27 and the total DOC (Direct Online Channel) market in India, which is currently at $5B, is expected to touch $22B by FY27. Incumbent players (like Unilever, Marico, Tata Consumer Products, ITC) are either acquiring prominent D2C brands or choosing the organic route of launching their own brands online and building their own D2C platforms. Agility and GTM (Go-To-Market) speed, attractive packaging, strong digital marketing capabilities, rising AOV (Average Order Value) and attractive gross margins are the key tailwinds for the D2C brands.