Hippeas Snacks On Traditional Retail Channels to Generate D2C Awareness

It has been a big year for direct-to-consumer (D2C) commerce. As consumers turned to online channels to fulfill retail needs that they had previously primarily fulfilled in-store, brands have had an opportunity to take advantage of the digital shift’s acceleration to drive D2C sales. Existing D2C brands have had a chance to gain new customers, traditional brands have had a chance to launch D2C offshoots and entrepreneurs have had the chance to launch new brands.

D2C remains a challenging space, requiring a strong awareness-generating strategy and an ultra-keen awareness of consumers’ evolving needs, without well-established retailers to facilitate the relationship with shoppers. However, supercharged by the pandemic, space is more promising than ever. Taking advantage of this opportunity, plant-based snack food brand Hippeas, which has been selling its chickpea-based snack foods in stores since 2016, has launched a new eCommerce site to sell directly to its fans.

“One of the biggest opportunities selling [D2C] is the ability to provide a personalized experience for our consumers,” Lindsey Valliere, vice president of marketing at Hippeas, told PYMNTS in an interview. “It grants us unprecedented access to our consumers and the opportunity to control the brand story, the product showcase and the purchase experience.”

D2C Working In Concert With Traditional Brick-And-Mortar Retail

Even as the company engages with consumers through its D2C channel, Hippeas is also continuing to sell through its retail partners, available at 50,000 stores including Starbucks, Target, CVS and Amazon. While owning the relationship with its existing fans through its eCommerce site, the brand can generate awareness through these partnerships with major retailers.

“At the retail level, a brand is offered large-scale exposure and access to consumers to establish and build a relationship over time, which is invaluable,” said Valliere.

Rather than attracting consumers purely through advertising, press and brand activations, the company can take advantage of the awareness that comes organically (no pun intended — Hippeas snacks are USDA organic) from appearing on shelves.

Building A Following

In comparison to traditional retail, Valliere noted, “The [D2C] space doesn’t have this kind of automatic exposure, and awareness and consumer traffic must be built.”

So how does Hippeas build that awareness and drive that traffic? Even before the company ever launched its D2C channel, it worked hard to bring customers on board. Using sampling (a more complicated strategy amid the pandemic), the brand built up its following.

“Early on, we knew we had to educate consumers on the product and drive trial,” said Valliere. “We saw incredible trial-to-purchase rates within our field program and continue to support this strategy.”

Now, as Hippeas seeks to guide consumers towards its D2C online store, it becomes more important than ever for the brand to build its relationship with consumers, telling the story of the product and creating an emotional association. It does this through its social channels, generating awareness through feel-good messaging and playful product photographs. The brand’s Instagram, for instance, has over 80,000 followers.

“[D2C] and social media strategy go hand-in-hand from the perspective of scale and speed to market — it’s the most important conversion channel we have,” Valliere noted. “We can create a really authentic experience through social media not only to sell but to build brand loyalty.”

Leveraging The DTC Channel In The Post-COVID-19 World

While the D2C space is growing quickly across industries right now, consumers are especially responsive to new, appealing food and beverage eCommerce offerings. According to Valliere, “The food and beverage category is now the fastest-growing eCommerce category out there.”

She attributes this rapid growth to the last year’s events, as formerly reliable supply chains broke down under the challenges of the pandemic, leaving consumers left to seek out new alternatives where once they may have been resistant to change.

“The biggest part of this growth is due to the distribution disruptions and demand in online grocery delivery during the pandemic,” said Valliere, “but also due to a slew of new players in the space, many of whom are launching businesses strictly with [D2C].”

Additionally, PYMNTS research has found that these changing habits are likely to stick around, even once herd immunity is achieved worldwide and consumers begin to settle into their new normal. Our survey found that 78 percent of grocery shoppers who have shifted to shopping more online reported that they intend to maintain at least some of these changed behaviors.

Ultimately, Valliere hopes that the D2C channel will help the brand gain a more comprehensive understanding of its consumers, offering valuable data on their changing habits and needs and guiding the brand in its future innovation.

Looking ahead to a year from now, Valliere said, “We hope to be able to report that our [D2C] channel is thriving and driving incremental sales and deepening consumer insights and connection for us.”