Only 20% of Direct-to-Consumer Merchants Sell to APAC Consumers

Direct-to-consumer (D2C) businesses may not have much of a presence in the Asia Pacific (APAC) area, but with significant investments planned in the near future, D2Cs are poised to grow dramatically in the region even within the next year.

For the PYMNTS study “The Emerging APAC Opportunity Playbook: Mapping International Expansion Edition,” created in collaboration with Citcon, we surveyed 500 businesses located across the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada to get a sense of how important the APAC region is to their expansion strategies.

What we found reveals that D2C retailers are behind the curve in the region, but likely not for long.

Get Your Copy: The Emerging APAC Opportunity Playbook: Mapping International Expansion Edition

The study found that only one in five D2C manufacturers are currently selling in the region, well behind other types of businesses, but an additional 17% are planning to enter the area in the next year. At that point, the category’s presence in the region will be comparable to that of marketplace eTailers and omnichannel retailers. Indeed, a greater share of D2Cs are planning their entrance into the area than any other kind of online seller apart from specialty eTailers.

In fact, 73% of D2C manufacturers expect their APAC sales to increase in the next three years, and 42% expect their APAC sales to increase by more than 50% in that time. Moreover, D2C manufacturers are expecting significantly higher cross-border sales increases in the region that other categories such as omnichannel retailers or specialty eTailers.

As such, it seems that D2C sellers are the most optimistic of all about their APAC growth potential, ready to take hold in the region in the months ahead.

Per the study, “It is clear that most of the international APAC expansion in the next three years will be driven by marketplace and D2C eTailers.”

See It Now: The Emerging APAC Opportunity Playbook: Mapping International Expansion Edition