More Channels Don't Automatically Mean More Growth
For consumer brands, the list of places to sell keeps getting longer.
Retail. Amazon. DTC. Marketplaces. Social commerce. Wholesale platforms. Specialty stores. Emerging channels.
It can make expansion feel like a checklist:
We should be on Amazon.
We need retail distribution.
Should we try TikTok Shop?
What about TEMU?
Should we sell through Faire?
But adding a sales channel is not the same thing as having a channel strategy.
Consumer brand leaders need to understand what each channel can actually do for the business.
Before asking “Should we sell there?”, ask:
What job do we need this channel to do?
Generate Incremental Sales
Can the channel generate revenue the brand would not otherwise capture?
The important word is incremental.
Moving an existing customer from your website to a marketplace may increase marketplace revenue, but it doesn’t necessarily create new demand for the business.
Look at what the channel is adding.
Is it reaching a new customer? A new geography? A different purchase occasion? Is it capturing a sale you weren’t getting before?
If you’re simply moving the same customer from one place to another, that’s a different outcome.
Acquire a New Customer
Sometimes the number of sales isn’t the most interesting number. Look at who is making the purchase.
A marketplace may reach a very different customer from your DTC site, Amazon audience or retail customer.
Ask:
Is there a customer here that my current channel mix isn’t reaching?
Patch Party Club is a good example.
The Illinois-based patch company tested TEMU by starting with a single design. According to founder Toyiah Marquis, the brand generated more than 300 orders in its first three weeks on the platform – and 90% came from new customers.
I keep coming back to that 90%.
The sales mattered. But Patch Party Club had also found a customer it wasn’t reaching through its existing channels.
That’s information worth paying attention to.
Create Product and Pricing Intelligence
Look at what those customers actually do.
Patch Party Club noticed that its TEMU customer responded to bundles and value. Instead of replicating the assortment it sold elsewhere, the company adapted its offering and introduced six-patch bundles around the $10 price point.
The customer behavior was different, so the assortment changed.
That’s useful data.
What products get clicked? What price points convert? Do customers buy one item or bundles? Which designs perform? What doesn’t move?
A new channel gives you another set of customer behavior to learn from. Use it.
Create Discovery
Some channels are better at discovery than others.
Think about walking through Whole Foods and seeing a snack you’ve never tried versus going to Amazon and searching for the snack you already know you want.
Both can result in a sale. But they started very differently.
If you’re an emerging brand and people don’t know you exist yet, getting the product in front of the right customer can be extremely valuable—even if that channel isn’t initially your largest source of revenue.
But where you create that discovery matters too.
Think about where you ultimately want the brand to go before choosing where to start.
If your goal is to build a premium brand and eventually sell through premium grocery retailers, launching first through heavily discounted channels may work against the positioning you’re trying to establish.
Your first channels start creating signals about price, customer, positioning and where the brand belongs.
Choose them with the next move in mind.
Make Purchasing Easier
Sometimes the job is simply convenience.
Your customer may discover you through Instagram, hear about you from a creator, visit your website—and ultimately purchase on Amazon because that’s where they already have an account, saved payment information and Prime delivery.
That’s okay.
Consumers don’t organize their lives around our channel strategies.
They buy where it makes sense for them.
The Instagram impression, Google search, website visit and Amazon purchase are all part of the same customer journey.
Build Proof of Demand
For brands trying to enter retail or expand distribution, existing channels can help answer a question buyers and partners will eventually ask:
Are people buying this?
Sales velocity. Repeat purchases. Reviews. Geographic concentration. Customer profiles. Best-selling SKUs. Assortment performance.
Bring the evidence.
It makes for a much stronger conversation with retailers, distributors, investors and partners than simply saying there is a large market opportunity.
Distribution can help you grow demand.
Don’t build your strategy around expecting distribution to create it for you.
The Same Strategy Won't Work Everywhere
Another mistake is taking what works in one channel and copying it into the next one.
Same assortment.
Same pricing logic.
Same merchandising.
Same customer proposition.
But the customer shopping at a specialty retailer isn’t necessarily behaving like the customer searching Amazon. The Amazon customer isn’t necessarily behaving like the TEMU customer. And your DTC customer may expect something completely different from all of them.
A specialty retailer may be strong for discovery and storytelling.
Amazon may capture search, convenience and replenishment.
A marketplace may give you access to a customer you’re not reaching elsewhere.
DTC gives you greater control over the experience and customer relationship.
Wholesale platforms can make it easier to reach independent retailers.
Decide what you need each one to do.
Before Adding Your Next Channel, Ask These Questions
When evaluating a channel opportunity, these are the questions I find more useful than simply asking whether a platform is popular:
- Who shops here that we aren’t reaching today?
- What shopping occasion does this channel capture?
- What do we want from it: revenue, discovery, acquisition, data, convenience, proof of demand-or something else?
- Does our assortment make sense for this customer?
- Does our pricing make sense here?
- Do the economics work after fees, fulfillment, commissions, promotions and returns?
- What can we learn here that could improve decisions elsewhere?
- How will we know whether the channel is doing the job we hired it to do?
That last question determines what you measure.
If the job is customer acquisition, measure new customers.
If it’s profitability, measure contribution margin.
If it’s discovery, look at reach and what happens afterward.
If you’re testing products, decide what you want to learn before you start.
If you’re building proof for retail, know what information you eventually want to put in front of the buyer.
Otherwise, it’s easy to call a channel a success-or a failure-using the wrong metric.
Don't Collect Channels. Build a Channel Strategy.
Being everywhere isn’t the goal.
Being in the right places, for the right reasons, is.
A channel doesn’t have to become your biggest revenue driver to be useful. It might introduce you to a new customer. It might show you that your pricing is wrong. It might identify an assortment opportunity. It might give you proof you can take into a retail conversation.
Know what you’re trying to get from it.
Then measure whether it’s doing that job.
And remember: building a new channel takes time, effort and money.
Getting an account approved is the easy part. Then comes onboarding, assortment, content, pricing, inventory, fulfillment, promotions, measurement and optimization.
If a channel offers dedicated onboarding support or a team willing to help you learn how the platform works, don’t take that lightly. There is real value in shortening that learning curve.
Opening a channel can happen quickly. Building one takes endurance.
Achachay: Helping consumer brands navigate the U.S. market.
Retail. Marketplaces. Strategy.
U.S. retail insights, marketplace strategy, consumer brands, U.S. market entry, retail strategy