Nike’s cautionary tale: When a D2C pivot goes awry

In the last five years, a bevy of brands including Nike, Levi’s, Crocs and Under Armour have turned their attention to their consumers as they looked to cut out the middleman.  And it’s little wonder given that in the US alone, direct-to-consumer (D2C) e-commerce sales are expected to grow 16.4 per cent to reach US$197.11 billion this year.  But pivoting an established brand to D2C is not without its challenges, as Nike can attest. To understand what went wrong, we need to backtrac

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