INC Magazine: The DTC Problem That Still Slows Most Brands Down

DTC is huge business. But you wouldn’t know it by the way many brands treat their DTC operations. Historically, it’s been seen as an experiment rather than the core of the business. And even when major companies launched digital storefronts, they still buried their DTC initiatives within existing departments.

When DTC responsibilities get broken up in this way—structured as a committee responsibility rather than an executive discipline—the problems start to pile up. First, there’s a breakdown in approvals. When everything you do requires sign-offs from marketing, IT, supply chain and finance departments, a simple task that should take a couple of days can take weeks or months.

Then there’s navigating conflicting goals. You can’t advertise “2-day fresh delivery” if the food keeps spoiling on the way to customers because the operations department keeps using ground shipping to save money.

More than that, innovation suffers. The types of sensory DTC experiences that work—custom unboxing, interactive flavor builders, or personalized subscriptions—get killed because no single executive is championing a vision for what drives growth.

It’s not that brands haven’t tried to fix this problem. Some have created roles like “director of DTC” or “head of e-commerce”—titles that sound good on paper but lack authority over operations or budgets to actually foster change.

Meanwhile, brands like Nike, Him & Hers and Bark (creator of BarkBox) have taken more drastic steps to reduce the friction, with roles and responsibilities that function more like a “Chief DTC Officer.”

Bark explicitly created dedicated executive leadership for DTC, bridging product development, subscriptions, and fulfillment under a single banner. Similarly, through its consumer direct acceleration strategy, Nike elevated direct-to-consumer and digital leadership to the C-suite, giving those DTC leaders direct control over both digital storefronts and physical brand stores to eliminate friction. And Hims & Hers was built from day-one with an integrated C-suite in which telehealth, fulfillment, and marketing answer to unified direct-to-consumer leadership, allowing it to earn $2.5B in revenue.

These are brands at the forefront of DTC thinking and leadership. But following their example takes a willingness to truly empower a chief DTC officer, allowing them to serve a few critical functions.

• P&L Architect: Any chief DTC Officer must own the end-to-end economics of the DTC business, full stop. That will allow them to have a unified sense of stakeholder needs—whether it’s balancing customer-acquisition cost against lifetime value, gross margins, fulfillment costs, or subscription retention—and prioritize accordingly.
• End-to-end customer journey orchestrator: This unifies the responsibilities of the marketing and tech/product departments. Doing this ensures that when a TikTok ad makes a claim, makes an offer, or sets an expectation, the entire e-commerce experience—UI/UX, checkout flow, post-purchase SMS updates and even the unboxing experience—seamlessly fulfills that promise.
• Supply chain translator: Chief DTC officers must be able to connect customer expectations with logistical realities. That means working directly with warehouse operations to build “DTC-native” fulfillment capabilities (like custom bundling, temperature-controlled shipping, or personalized inserts) without burning through a brand’s earnings.
• The channel diplomat: DTC and wholesale retail can’t be at odds. Instead of seeing wholesale as an enemy, a chief DTC officer must have the ability to treat DTC as a brand’s first-party data lab—using direct online sales and flavor testing to prove consumer demand before making the jump to Target or Walmart.

It’s time for more chief DTC officers and for brands to entrust them with the power to drive growth. It’s not enough to give a CMO or COO the reins. DTC lives in the messy middle where brand story directly impacts economics, and deserves a leader that understands how to navigate the unique challenges that come with that responsibility.

Only when that happens will DTC stop feeling like everyone’s secondary priority, and realize its full potential as a powerful customer insights and brand growth channel.