It wasn’t too long ago that in India, Kashmiri apparel sellers carrying large, red-checked bed sheets full of handmade embroidered shawls, dress materials, and stoles would spend their days knocking on door after door, trying to sell their wares to people in the neighborhood.
These sellers took a direct-to-consumer (D2C) approach to business, doing away with middlemen by hawking their merchandise to customers themselves.
That same business model has evolved, and it’s been seeing a boom in investments in India. Consumer brands are raking in hundreds of millions of dollars from prominent venture capital firms like Sequoia and Temasek. However, there are some key differences between today’s D2C businesses and the door-to-door sellers of yesteryears.
On this episode of Deep Dive, Tech in Asia’s Samreen Ahmad discusses the emergence of India’s D2C decade, the sheer potential within the sector, and the hurdles that players in the scene may face in the future.
Timecodes:
00:00 – Intro music
00:48 – Today’s topic: India’s D2C boom
02:55 – Early instances of D2C in India
04:50 – How the D2C businesses of today are different from those of yesteryears’
07:05 – The catalyst behind the rise of D2C
08:10 – The multibillion-dollar potential of India’s D2C sector
10:33 – The leading D2C brands in India
12:32 – Could D2C brands join the big leagues in the startup scene?
13:49 – Potential challenges facing new entrants to the sector
16:53 – The future of D2C in India
Download the full transcript here.
Featured reporter:
- Samreen Ahmad, a Tech in Asia journalist based in India
Essential reading:
- The decade of D2C has just begun in India
- In Indonesia, a golden age of VC-backed consumer brands may be imminent
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