Digital adoption accelerated by a massive seven years during Covid, with digital-first becoming the norm across areas like shopping and banking. To ensure businesses stayed relevant and kept pace, many switched to direct-to-consumer (D2C) during lockdown. In short, it was the only way to trade when stores were closed.

Some of these D2C sites were thrown up fast, perhaps without the planning and thought that would have gone into such a project had a global pandemic not hit the world.

Indeed, we helped Heinz roll out their first ever D2C experience for customers on Shopify Plus, allowing them to spin up direct-to-consumer stores quickly and cost-effectively in any region or language around the world.

The initial site went live within a fortnight, and we’ve continued to support Heinz, helping them expand and refine their D2C offering – the crux of this article.

In the new normal we’re living in where customer behaviour has changed for good and the digital mindset is here to stay, what can businesses do to develop, enhance and optimise their D2C sites?

Evolving consumer behaviour 

Research by Google and Trinity McQueen revealed that Covid brought about permanent changes to UK consumer behaviour, with online shopping here to stay and the shift consistent across age groups. However, the pandemic isn’t the only driving factor; other reasons include:

• Easier to find a specific or new product online
• Convenience
• Home delivery options
• Buying online is cheaper

With that in mind, organisations with D2C stores should scrutinise their offering, identify weak spots and pain points, and take remedial action. By doing that, SERP visibility improves, as well as the end-user experience – win-win.

From the design side

This perspective is all about user experience and ensuring it’s as simple, streamlined, and intuitive as possible. Areas to mull over include:

• Is the UX efficient and effective?
• Is the signposting obvious?
• Can customers quickly find what they need?
• Is the mobile experience as good as desktop?

If the answer is no, it’s time to shake things up. Many D2C sites were built quickly during lockdown, meaning some of the finer details may have been missed. By focusing on those, you can increase conversions and sales.

For example, if you use a ready-made D2C template, there will undoubtedly be ways to customize it so it doesn’t look off the shelf – say goodbye to generic design elements and put your brand and personality at the core of your site.

By injecting elements that are individual to you – things like your brand colour palette and tone of voice – you draw customers in.  

From a development angle

One of the first things to consider from the dev side is scalability. Do your tech stack and e-commerce platform have the necessary tools for growth and extension?

If your answer is no, don’t panic: we’re by no means suggesting you overhaul your D2C offering. Instead, we recommend auditing and optimising what you’ve got. Indeed, it may be the case that you have a stack or platform with the necessary tools, but you’re not sure how to utilise them and unaware of their full suite of features.

For example, Prismic’s headless content management system is robust, scalable, and highly available. Moreover, improvements are made on a monthly basis and you can integrate Prismic with the most popular web development technologies and frameworks, including Next.js, React.js and Gatsby.

Meanwhile, cloud-based e-commerce platform Shopify Plus is resilient, designed to operate in a global marketplace and equipped to handle high traffic, should you experience growth in customers.

Moreover, the platform offers gold standard security, multi-channel software and time-saving automation capabilities: Shopify Flow, Launchpad and Shopify Scripts. As a result, your business can scale up (or down), as and when needed.

Indeed, in the two years since Heinz launched their D2C experience, we’ve supported them as they expanded their online store to cover six countries and two languages. And we’re currently working with Bird Eyewear, helping them improve their existing Shopify site.

There’s also suitability and flexibility to think about:

• Does your website fit the needs of your customers?
• Are you able to make significant changes without dev involvement?

To make the digital journey better for your customers, make the most of the technical customization features your platform offers – look into multichannel and omnichannel features, see if you can create custom checkout experiences, and delve into personalising experiences.

Other focus areas include accessibility and page speed. Test whether your e-commerce store is accessible across devices and networks – does the platform load as quickly on 3G and 4G as WiFi? If you’re seeing issues, perhaps you’re not uploading content and images optimally, therefore impacting site speed. Or maybe you have caching issues?

Getting the most out of your D2C platform

When Covid hit, many businesses pivoted to D2C, scrambling to build e-commerce stores. Fast forward to 2023, and it’s time to regroup and think about what customers need and want now. Does your website measure up?

We also suggest diving into UX, accessibility and page speed, strengthening areas that may have been neglected in your rush to get up and running.

By making improvements to better serve the needs of your digital-first customers while finessing and personalising your website to upgrade the D2C experience, you’re doing all you can to maximise conversions and sales.
If you’re looking to enhance your D2C site but need some guidance, get in touch – we’d love to support you with strategic direction, UX and technical expertise. We’re all about helping you build on what you’ve got.