Every online-first brand starts with a simple idea: sell directly, connect with customers, and grow fast. But once revenue crosses a certain level, cracks begin to show. Customer acquisition costs in India have increased by 25 to 40 percent in the last three years across Meta and Google ads. At the same time, return rates in categories like fashion and beauty range between 20 to 35 percent. This...
When a digital-first brand in India steps into physical stores, the first assumption is simple. Offline will reduce ad spends and increase scale. But the ground reality is very different. The unit economics of D2C offline retail expansion in India work on a completely different cost structure. Online CAC for many Indian beauty and food brands has increased by 70 to 120 percent in the last four...
When a brand moves beyond early traction, the real pressure is not sales volume. It is margin stability. At a small scale, performance ads look efficient because you are targeting high-intent users. CAC may sit at ₹400 to ₹500, conversion rates hover around 3%, and frequency stays under 2. But once monthly spends cross ₹30 to ₹40 lakhs, audience saturation begins. CPMs rise 25% to 40%, conversion...
Our US CEO Maciej Stanski recently sat down with Scott Needham on the Smartest Amazon Seller podcast for a wide-ranging conversation about multichannel ecommerce operations, where ecommerce is heading, and what operators need to do about it. Watch the full conversation below, or read on for the key takeaways. Amazon is still king, but it’s getting harder to win on Amazon remains the anchor...
Orders are growing, your warehouse is running at full speed, and your campaigns are live. But do you actually know which products are driving profit — and which ones are quietly eating into it? Most store owners realise this too late. That’s why we’ve just introduced two new features to Base Analytics: Inventory Insights and an AI Analytics Agent. Both are available at no extra cost within your...
Growth feels predictable in the early stage. You launch ads, CAC stays at ₹250 to ₹400, ROAS holds at 3.5x to 4x, and revenue scales from ₹1Cr to ₹5Cr, then ₹10Cr, and eventually ₹20Cr. At this point, most founders believe the growth engine is stable. But within 6 to 12 months after crossing ₹20Cr, performance metrics begin shifting in ways dashboards do not immediately reveal. CAC typically...
If you’re selling across four or more channels, you already know the problem. Listings fall out of sync. Inventory gets stale. Suppressions go unnoticed. And the more channels you add, the worse it gets. Most sellers assume it’s a tool problem. It’s not — it’s a structural one. Each marketplace has its own title limits, category taxonomy, image specs, and suppression logic...
For ecommerce brands, growth has shifted. It’s no longer about choosing the right channel. It’s about managing all of them. Marketplaces like SHEIN are opening up massive new demand. Fulfillment solutions like Amazon Multi Channel Fulfillment (MCF) are making delivery faster and more scalable than ever. So why do so many brands still struggle to expand? Because adding channels often adds...
When a D2C brand in India starts to grow, pricing stops being just a number on the product page and becomes the backbone of the entire business. At ₹5 lakh monthly revenue, small pricing mistakes can be absorbed. But once you cross ₹20–30 lakh per month and begin spending ₹3–5 lakh on ads, every ₹50 pricing gap starts showing up in your cash flow. That is why understanding how D2C brands should...
When a D2C brand starts scaling, revenue feels exciting. But as orders grow, so do returns. And when returns increase, margins quietly shrink. This is where the D2C returns impact on profitability and RTO losses. Then margins start becoming very real for Indian sellers, especially those operating across their own website and marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, and Meesho. In India, return rates...