The long-term strategy for brands you carry is to go direct-to-consumer, cutting you out. The only sustainable defense for a retailer is to build its own brand equity by creating and marketing its own private-label products, transitioning from a utility to a destination brand.

True Religion strategically defines the objective of each partnership before launch. A collaboration with Ford aimed for mass scale and broad awareness. In contrast, a partnership with fashion brand Bella Donna was specifically designed to attract a new, targeted audience (the Hispanic consumer), showcasing a dual-pronged approach to growth.

Instead of using retail to build awareness, Manscaped waited until they had massive marketing spend. This ensured customers would specifically seek them out in stores, guaranteeing high sell-through for partners like Target and de-risking the move from D2C to physical retail.

When expanding into new categories, Heaven Mayhem's first filter is "Is this an accessory that fits our world?" not "How will this impact AOV?". This brand-first approach accepts metric trade-offs, like a lower AOV for new customer acquisition, to maintain a cohesive brand identity.

Malk, a retail-focused brand, built a Shopify site not for direct sales but to control messaging, connect with consumers, and gather data. Their site uses technology allowing users to add products to a local retailer's online cart. This creates a valuable, albeit incomplete, data point on purchase intent for a channel that traditionally offers none.

For his second book, author Ramli John drove 77% of sales directly, bypassing Amazon. While Amazon offers volume, direct sales provide higher margins and, more importantly, invaluable customer data (like emails) that enables direct communication, feedback loops, and long-term community building.

For CPG brands, a physical retail presence, even with lower margins, should be viewed as a customer acquisition strategy. It provides crucial visibility and trial, driving customers to your higher-margin direct-to-consumer website for subsequent purchases and retention.

Coterie treats its physical retail presence not just as a sales channel, but as a marketing tool. A well-placed product block acts like a billboard, driving discovery and funneling 10-12% of new customers back to their primary D2C subscription business.

Many organizations mistakenly view partner marketing as a series of disconnected activities like webinars. True partner marketing is a comprehensive go-to-market strategy that defines the end-to-end plan for launching joint solutions and messages.