The New Era of Consumer Culture How D2C Founders Are Adapting Their Business To Meet Customers Where They Are Now and Where They Will Be Tomorrow

By Ritu Marya

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.

Entrepreneur India

Nir Ayal has said "People don't want something truly new. They want the familiar done differently." New-age consumer brands have disrupted the retail market on this very mindset packaged with an omnichannel equation and combined with their unique blend of price, product innovation, and consumer experience. The inclusion of data on the whole — from anywhere and in real-time — has helped the brands make better, more informed judgments.

The culmination of technology and commerce with advanced systems such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, which can detect patterns that human logic may miss, has brought faster decisionmaking across the entire value chain. Additionally, the increasing focus on a contentfirst approach for customer engagement has brought more control over output. If consumer data is the new oil, the consumer is the ecosystem's North Star and then retail, no matter how you slice it, revolves around the consumer.

Our Makers Co issue is focused on new-age brands, showcasing decisionmakers who are growing, transforming, innovating, and therefore tilting the brand ecosystem in India. They are young, hyper-focused, and with their intellectual energy are gunning for the TAM of 759 million Indian active Internet users to shift towards new-age commerce. The founders are brandobsessed from day 0 and are always looking at the bigger picture, both qualitatively by enabling a real impact on lives, and quantitatively, in terms of scale. Whether it is a revolutionary subscription model or social commerce, video-based selling, storytelling, or memorable branded experience, the Makers are one step up from their industrial counterparts who are also fast catching on to the D2C moment.

The D2C opportunity is so lucrative as we also share in this issue how traditional FMCG companies such as Dabur, ITC, Marico, Wipro and Parle Agro are also trying their luck in the space either by acquisitions or starting their own digital-first brands.

Sustainbility has become paramount in today's world. The outright need to adopt sustainable practices and products has become a priority for all size of businessess. And in recent times, seaweed has emerged as a strong candidate to make our daily products more sustainable and eco-friendly. We look into various use cases of seaweed.

The issue also looks at new regulations brought in by the Government for the online gaming sector. Under these regulations, online real money games that involve betting or wagering have been prohibited. And the government will be notifying three new self-regulatory organisations (SROs) to approve the games that can operate in the country.

Does it indicate a new dawn for real money games? The issue dives deeper to find out what steps companies are taking up besides news rules to protect consumer interest in the wake of reports of people getting addicted to such games and losing their financial savings. What are the Markets telling you today? We turn our focus toward the amended Finance Bill that has taken away the indexation benefit enjoyed by debt mutual funds for quite a long time. The story evaluates if they are still a good investment option in the debt category.

Ritu Marya

Editor-in-Chief, Entrepreneur Media (APAC & India)

Business News

JPMorgan Shuts Down Internal Message Board Comments After Employees React to Return-to-Office Mandate

Employees were given the option to leave comments about the RTO mandate with their first and last names on display — and they did not hold back.

Business Ideas

70 Small Business Ideas to Start in 2025

We put together a list of the best, most profitable small business ideas for entrepreneurs to pursue in 2025.

News and Trends

Recur Club Announces Credit Offerings for Startups Beyond Series A and SMEs

In FY 24–25, the platform also plans to deploy an additional INR 2000 crores through its Recur Swift program for startups.

News and Trends

NeoSapien Secures INR 80 Lakhs on Shark Tank India 4 for AI Wearable

Founded in 2024 by Dhananjay Yadav and Aryan Yadav, NeoSapien aims to integrate AI into daily life through its wearable technology

News and Trends

Accel Fuels Sarla Aviation's Flying Taxi Ambitions with USD 10 Mn Investment

Angel investors, including Binny Bansal (Flipkart co-founder), Nikhil Kamath (Zerodha co-founder), and Sriharsha Majety (Swiggy co-founder), also participated in the round.

News and Trends

Eccentric Eyes Global Expansion with USD 5 Mn Pre-Series A Funding

The round was co-led by Exfinity Venture Partners and Arkam Ventures, marking the company's first institutional funding since its inception in 2012.