Your product is on a retailer’s shelf and is selling well. And yet you know almost nothing about the people who are buying it. Who they are, why they come back, what they need next: all of this gets lost between the customer and the till in the retail trade. This is precisely where D2C becomes interesting for manufacturers. You sell directly, get to know your customers and build a relationship that you simply lacked before.
You’ve long been familiar with B2B and B2C. D2C is the third term to emerge, and as a consumer, you’re probably already using it without realising it. Let’s take a look at what lies behind it, where the real opportunities and pitfalls lie, and how you can set up your own D2C shop step by step.
What does D2C actually mean?
D2C stands for ‘Direct-to-Consumer’, meaning direct sales from the manufacturer to the end customer. Wholesale and retail act as intermediaries are eliminated: the manufacturer runs its own online shop, its own app or its own brand store and engages with the end customer without any intermediaries. It may sound like a minor difference, but it transforms the entire business model. Instead of supplying goods to a retailer and then losing track of them, you design the entire customer journey yourself, from the first click to the second order. And you gain something that, in the traditional retail model, lies with the intermediary: the data and the relationship with your customers.
The figures show that this is not a niche topic – if you read them carefully. A Simon-Kucher study from September 2025 found that 64 per cent of all smartphones are bought directly from the brand. However, around half of these are purchased via Amazon brand shops, i.e. via a marketplace rather than the brand’s own channel. Across all electronics categories, 17 per cent of purchases are made via the manufacturer’s own shop, whilst 56 per cent are made via brand shops on Amazon. This distinction is the crux of the matter: buying directly from the manufacturer is not the same as buying directly via the manufacturer.
The market behind this continues to grow. According to HDE Online Monitor 2026, whilst the online share of total retail stood at 13.5 per cent. The bevh reports merchandise turnover of 83.1 billion euros for 2025 and expects growth of 3.8 per cent for 2026 – with a market share of 56 per cent, which a dedicated channel will initially have to contend with. As early as in a diconium study from 2022, 63 per cent of the manufacturers surveyed considered D2C to be a (very) relevant sales model.
Why D2C is so attractive to manufacturers
Direct sales offer you several advantages at once:
- Full control over product and price. No listing negotiations, no third-party discount campaigns. You decide how your brand is presented.
- Higher margins. The mark-ups that wholesalers and retailers would otherwise take stay with you.
- Your own customer data. You get an unfiltered view of who is buying, what’s selling well and what’s not.
- Control over the entire customer journey. From initial contact through to after-sales, you design every touchpoint yourself.
- Direct control of the supply chain. You are no longer dependent on third-party ordering policies.
The real key lies in the word ‘direct’. The better you know your target audience, the more precisely you can tailor your shop, product range and messaging to them. In the traditional retail model, this feedback is virtually impossible; in the D2C model, it is at the very heart of the business. Anonymous purchases turn into recognisable customers, and a one-off transaction becomes a relationship that you can nurture.
Where D2C really gets tough
As tempting as it sounds: if it were easy, everyone would have been doing it long ago. Three hurdles crop up time and again in practice, and it’s worth addressing them head-on.
Firstly, long-standing relationships with retailers. Established brands in particular have spent years building up a distribution network. The move to direct sales therefore initially feels like a risk to that very network. The potential loss seems greater at the outset than the eventual gain. This is a genuine area of tension, not something to be dismissed lightly.
Secondly, the technical and logistical know-how. Direct sales mean you need a robust online shop, streamlined processes and people who can manage them. If this expertise isn’t available in-house, you’ll need to build it up or bring it in. On top of that, direct dispatch to many individual end customers is logistically more complex than sending a pallet to a retailer: different packaging, different procedures, and sometimes a returns management system that didn’t even exist before.
Thirdly, the increased marketing expenditure. The mark-ups for retailers and logistics partners are eliminated, but in return you take on tasks that others used to handle. Visibility, advertising, reach: you now have to manage these yourself, and that costs money. So some of the margin saved goes towards building up your own marketing.
The good news is that none of these hurdles is a deal-breaker. They can be planned for if you scale your entry into the market correctly.
D2C in DACH: What air up has demonstrated
Munich-based air up demonstrates that D2C works on a large scale in the DACH region. The brand sells a drinking system that flavours water with scents and has been on the market since summer 2019, with a clear direct-to-consumer focus from the outset. What started as a small founding team has grown into a company with over 300 employees (as of 2023), which sells in more than ten countries and had sold over five million water bottles by the end of 2024. The growth is the real proof: Turnover rose from 90 million euros (2021) to over 159 million euros (2022) – an increase of around 75 per cent in a single year – and reached around 200 million euros in 2023 (W&V). The company has not published any more recent figures (as at August 2026).
What is air up doing right? The brand is building its own brand experience rather than simply selling a product. It engages directly with customers, nurtures its community, and, via its own channels, collects precisely the data it needs to further refine its products and marketing approach. This is the essence of D2C in its purest form: close to the customer, data-driven, brand over shelf space.
An important reality check here: air up is ‘born digital’, having started as a direct-to-consumer brand without any legacy retailer baggage. For an established manufacturer with a well-developed distribution network, the path is far more delicate. That’s why it’s rarely a case of “D2C instead of retail”, but rather “D2C alongside retail”: an additional channel that gives you direct access to customers without undermining your existing business.
And even air up isn’t staying purely direct: Since the end of 2024, the brand has been its presence in brick-and-mortar retail – Kaufland, Edeka, Rossmann and Müller in Germany, dm in Austria, Coop in Switzerland, and Sainsbury’s in the UK. So, even those who have mastered D2C perfectly end up on the shelves anyway. This isn’t a failure of the model, but its logical next step: first build the direct customer relationship and gather data, then take the brand to the high street. For you, as an established manufacturer, the order is simply the other way round.
How to set up your D2C shop
If you’re seriously considering getting started, four key building blocks will serve as a guiding thread.
1. Target audience and data first. D2C thrives on precision. Before you think about technology, you need to define exactly who you’re targeting and what data you want to collect about these people. An outdoor equipment manufacturer doesn’t need to put its entire range online to do this: a single, best-selling product line, complete with accessories, is enough to gather genuine customer data and learn who is actually buying from you. The more precisely you define your target audience, the better you can tailor your shop, product range and communication to them. This clarity will later be your most important advantage over anonymous retail sales.
2. An online shop system that grows with you. Your direct sales stand or fall on a technical foundation that starts out lean today and can handle heavy loads tomorrow. A flexible online shop system like Shopware gives you control over the brand experience and can be integrated with stock management, dispatch and marketing. Our service overview shows how a professional e-commerce set-up works. Anyone focusing on growth and multiple touchpoints from the outset should also take a look at composable or headless approaches, where the frontend can be freely designed.
3. Product data that’s spot on. In direct sales, your product description is the salesperson you never had in a shop. Well-maintained, complete product data is crucial for discoverability and conversion. As your product range grows, it’s well worth implementing structured product information management (PIM) to ensure the same data is used consistently across your shop, marketing and marketplaces.
4. Plan logistics and marketing realistically. Clarify early on how shipping to individual end customers will work, how you’ll handle returns, and what budget you’ll use to build reach. These two areas are the costs that eat into your saved retail margin. Don’t treat them as an afterthought, but as an integral part of your D2C business model.
What has changed legally for your D2C shop in 2026
As soon as you sell directly to end customers, you assume obligations that, in the retail model, were effectively the responsibility of the retailer. Three of these have been added in 2026, and they apply from the very first parcel, not just once a certain turnover threshold is reached. Anyone setting up a direct sales channel now would be well advised to factor these in straight away, rather than having to retrofit them later.
Cancellation button, effective from 19 June 2026. Every online shop through which consumers enter into a contract that can be cancelled has, since then, been required to provide an electronic cancellation function in accordance with Section 356a of the German Civil Code (BGB): a ‘Cancel contract’ button that is prominently displayed throughout the entire cancellation period and accessible from every subpage, along with a confirmation page and an immediate acknowledgement of receipt on a durable medium. The Implementation Act was promulgated in February 2026; the obligation applies to contracts concluded on or after the effective date. If the button is missing, this may result in a formal warning and an extended withdrawal period. Pure B2B shops are exempt, but hybrid models are not.
EU Packaging Regulation, effective from 12 August 2026. Regulation (EU) 2025/40 (EU) 2025/40 (PPWR) will apply directly in all Member States from this date. Immediately relevant are conformity assessment, the EU declaration of conformity and technical documentation for your packaging, as well as limit values for heavy metals and PFAS in food contact materials. By contrast, the much-cited 50 per cent void space requirement for shipping packaging will not come into effect until 1 January 2030, whilst harmonised labelling will apply from 12 August 2028. For you as a manufacturer, this means above all that responsibility for packaging now clearly lies with you; it is no longer effectively shared with retailers.
The duty-free threshold has been abolished as of 1 July 2026. The duty exemption for consignments under 150 euros has been abolished; on a transitional basis, 3 euros per type of goods per consignment will be payable. This does not affect you if you manufacture and dispatch within the EU. It affects the direct import platforms whose prices you’re competing against: according to the HDE, foreign suppliers accounted for just under 11 billion euros in turnover in Germany, of which 4.7 billion came from Temu and Shein.
None of these three points is a reason to abandon D2C. They simply highlight where the effort lies: your own channel brings you the customer relationship – and the compliance that someone else used to handle. Factor both into the same business case.
Is D2C worth it for you?
Back to the beginning, to the product on the shelf whose buyers you don’t know. D2C is the way to bridge this gap: with better margins, full control over your brand and a direct relationship with your customers. The price you pay is greater responsibility for technology, logistics and marketing.
For most medium-sized manufacturers, the most honest answer isn’t ‘all or nothing’, but a controlled start: a dedicated channel alongside the retail sector, on a small scale, with a clear target audience and technology that grows with you. If this channel proves successful, you will have built something that retailers could never give you: your own customers.