An urban-apparel brand migrating from wholesale-dominant to D2C-dominant — platform, logistics, marketing & ops blueprint.
An apparel brand with 7 years of wholesale history wanted to shift 40%+ of revenue to D2C within 12 months — without cannibalising their retail stockists.
Stockists were nervous. Pricing arbitrage, stock allocation and launch exclusivity all needed thinking — the setup wasn't just tech, it was channel diplomacy.
Brand awareness was already strong through wholesale. Organic traffic was being captured by stockists' sites — a direct site could recapture 30%+ of that demand.
A 5-step repeatable process — from brief to investor-ready pack, powered by AI across financial modelling, market sizing & narrative writing.
Shopify Plus vs Salesforce B2C vs custom. Shopify Plus won on speed-to-launch and ecosystem maturity in the GCC.
MAP policy, early-drop exclusivity, online-only SKU tier. Designed to grow D2C without blowing up wholesale.
Two 3PL partners (UAE + KSA), returns SLA of 5 days, reverse logistics flow. SLA-level contract template drafted.
Meta/Google at the top, TikTok creator seeding mid-funnel, email/SMS at the bottom. CAC ladder tuned by customer segment.
9-month Gantt — platform build (month 1-3), soft launch (4-5), scale (6-9). Weekly checkpoint template for the internal PM.
Each row is a finished tab, slide or one-pager handed to the client — ready to share with lenders, investors or JV partners.
One-page investor-ready narrative
Revenue, COGS, opex, EBITDA by month
Month-by-month to break-even point
Fit-out, equipment, licensing & launch
Shopify Plus vs alternatives
MAP + exclusivity framework
Best/base/worst case with levers
Implementation roadmap
Platform went live at month 4. D2C share reached 38% by month 14 — slightly below target but ahead of industry benchmarks. No major stockist lost.
The channel protection policy worked — the brand retained all 34 existing wholesale accounts during the transition.
Short of the 42% target but ahead of the 25-30% industry benchmark for a wholesale-first apparel brand doing D2C pivot.
Feasibility studies, investor pitches, P&L models & market sizing — built with AI in 48 hours, reviewed by 37+ years of GCC retail experience.
Book a Call With Aziz →