The biggest mistake is thinking about a "DTC to wholesale" strategy at all. The entire premise is backward. You can’t just bolt on a wholesale business once your DTC engine is humming, because it’s not an added channel, it’s a fundamentally different business. As Audrey McLoghlin of Grayson pointed out on Future Commerce, brands that don’t plan for it from the beginning don't realistically have the margins needed to sustain deep wholesale partnerships. It’s incredibly difficult to go backward and re-engineer your model.
The appeal of wholesale is obvious, especially right now. Customer acquisition costs are painful, and relying on Meta and Google feels like a trap. The idea of getting a few huge purchase orders from major retailers instead of fighting for every single $100 DTC order is tempting. It promises scale, diversification, and a new stream of customers. You might see a brand like Bushbalm experiencing 70% growth driven by retail and think it’s a simple switch to flip for a mature company. This is the common view, and it’s a dangerous oversimplification.
The reality is that a DTC business and a wholesale business operate on different financial and logistical planets. On Shopify Masters, the founders of Trovata noted that you can’t just take a wholesale strategy and "plop it online," and the reverse is even more true. A DTC brand is often built to support gross margins of 60% or more. A traditional retail partner will immediately take 40-60% of the retail price, completely erasing the margin you need to survive. The logistics are also entirely different. Shipping individual boxes from a 3PL is not the same as shipping pallets, managing chargebacks, and meeting the complex requirements of a big-box retailer.
Instead of trying to pivot, the smarter approach is to build an omnichannel brand from the ground up. Brian Garofalow from Skullcandy laid out the correct way to think about this on Ecommerce Playbook. Your direct-to-consumer business should be your testing ground. It’s a leading indicator of what works and what doesn’t. You make your investments, you have your failures, but you find your "one runaway success." Then you can walk into a meeting with a wholesale partner, present that data, and show them a proven winner. This de-risks the relationship for them and turns it into a genuine partnership instead of a simple transaction.
This doesn't mean wholesale is the only path forward. Amy Smilovic of Tibi is vocal about her gratitude for not working with U.S. department stores, building a hugely successful brand by focusing on her own channels. The crucial decision isn
