D2C x Experience

Hey readers,

Welcome to the twenty-fourth edition of D2C Cents!

This edition? We talk about:

• How experiential retail is solving a problem that ads never could

• The step-by-step path for low-risk to offline

Let's dive right into it.

On 7 June, Broadway opened a 40,000 sq ft store on Hill Road in Bandra, in the old Globus building.

It houses 200+ D2C and premium brands, including Almost Gods, Gully Labs, Past Modern, Rare Rabbit, Mokobara, Comet, and Parul Gulati's Nish Hair, which is running a dedicated physical experience zone inside the store. Cava Athleisure, FAE Beauty, Behno, and Moxie Beauty are part of the mix, too.

Broadway believes that online brands want to be visible in physical stores, but without the cost and hassle of opening their own shops.

Parul Gulati appreciated the Broadway model for enabling physical presence for small / digital brands in prime real estate like Bandra..

There are no long-term commitments and no large upfront investment, both out of reach for many digital-first brands.

To keep the store interesting for customers, Broadway intends to churn ~30% of its brands every three months.

For brands:

• They can set up their display in just one day.

• Get access to shopping mall-level footfall

• They can leave after a few months if it isn't working.

The exact rent is not public, but it's said to be in the range of Rs.50,000 to Rs.200,000 per month, depending on the space.

And this is not an untested idea. Broadway opened in Delhi first. That store launched with around 115 D2C brands and built in experiential properties like a mini food court, a bar, a stage where new products get launched, and dedicated zones where brands set up mini-stores. Its early roster included big names like Aqualogica, Minimalist, Kapiva, Oziva, Suta, Mokobara, and The Label Life.

That tells you everything about where Indian retail is going.

A well-known fact in our circles is that CAC through Meta / Google is through the roof.

Instagram clicks that cost around ₹10 a few years ago now run closer to ₹35, and influencer rates have roughly tripled.

The blended cost to acquire one customer has climbed from ₹800–₹1,200 in 2023 to ₹1,200–₹1,800 in 2024 to ₹1,800–₹2,500 in 2025, while Meta CPMs in India are up 40–60% since 2023.

800+ D2C brands are now bidding for the same 25-to-45-year-old urban shopper, while ad inventory has grown far more slowly.

So founders are doing the math and realising that a new-age physical presence, done right, can be a cheaper and stickier way to get discovered than buying another expensive click.

This is the part to study, because the smartest brands are coming up with bespoke offline strategies.

Events and Launch Moments

Indē Wild, Diipa Büller-Khosla's Ayurvedic beauty brand, is the sharpest example.

The crowd was so large that the NYPD had to help manage it, and the brand even served chai to people waiting in the cold.

Indē Wild spent years building a digital community, then converted it into a physical moment that generated more earned media than any ad buy could.

The low-cost community activation

They haven't announced any offline presence, yet they organised a community puppy yoga event; which probably cost less than a store launch party but did a lot more for awareness and loyalty.

For a young brand, such events are a cost-effective way to connect with customers and earn trust before investing in a physical store.

What does this route cost?

• Venue rental in Mumbai (mid-tier): ₹50,000–₹2,00,000 for a day

• Decor, setup, product sampling: ₹30,000–₹1,00,000

• Invite-only, 50–150 people: zero paid media needed

• What you get: 50–150 pieces of authentic UGC, word-of-mouth from real advocates, press coverage if the brand is compelling, and a community that feels ownership over the brand

Compare that to ₹1,50,000 on Meta ads for 150 link clicks. The event wins on every dimension except scale.

The downside: events don't scale easily. You can't do one every week. They work best for brand-defining moments - launches, anniversary editions, capsule drops.

Flea Markets and Pop-Up Circuits

The Lil Flea

For D2C brands, it is a trusted platform to get discovered because the people who attend are actively looking for new products, brands, and experiences.

Sunday Soul Sante

It is India's longest-running flea market circuit and is especially important for Bengaluru-based brands. In Bengaluru, it plays a similar role to what The Lil Flea does in Mumbai—helping new and independent brands reach customers who enjoy discovering unique products.

What does this route cost?

The Lil Flea charges brands based on stall size, with options ranging from small 5×3 ft carts for newer businesses to larger 10×10 ft stalls. Ranging from Rs.30k to 1 lakh per weekend. It also offers discounts for early bookings, brands that participate on both weekends, and businesses coming from outside the city.

For the cost of a booth, a brand gets access to the large crowds attracted by 400+ shopping stalls, along with food vendors, live music, and workshops spread across two weekends.

Past Modern, once a purely online label, took the same logic onto a shared shelf and now sits inside Broadway.

The brands doing well offline today didn’t always start by opening lots of stores. They first proved that customers wanted their products, and only then invested heavily in physical retail. 

Comet is the cleanest example of this. It’s a homegrown sneaker brand founded in July 2023 by Utkarsh Gupta and Dishant Daryani.

It launched with no stores, no celebrity faces and barely any ad budget, on a single bet to turn sneakers into cultural objects and let the community do the marketing.

How they climbed the ladder (the order is everything):

Utkarsh Gupta calls the flagship more than retail, a space meant to bring the brand to life in person, with pop-ups and events lined up next in cities like Chandigarh and Pune

That is the blueprint in a single brand. Community first, then borrowed shelves, then your own store. The store arrived as the reward for demand, not the bet that created it.

Not every founder has a fit with a flea market, and that's understandable.

A store in a premium location like Bandra or Hauz Khas signals credibility, permanence, and premium positioning.

Inde wild partnered with Sephora Uk exclusively because prestige was part of its strategy.

However, don’t steamroll into offline retail because signals indicate it's making a comeback.

Our take: the sequence for going offline

If you are weighing an offline play, here is how we would sequence it.

Step 1: Start with experiences and events: Run workshops. Do brand launch events. Host pop-ups in your home city. You find out if people will show up for your brand in real life before you spend real money.

Step 2: Move to flea markets and pop-up circuits: Lil Flea, Sunday Soul Sante, Farmers Markets, local pop-up collectives. These are low-cost, high-footfall, and self-selecting audiences who want to discover new brands. A good weekend here tells you more about your offline demand than any market research.

Step 3: Multi-brand placements like Broadway: Once you've validated demand, getting a slot in Broadway or a similar multi-brand format gives you permanent retail presence with shared infrastructure. You're not paying for the entire store, just your corner of it.

Step 4: Your own retail store. Only once you know the city, the customer, the price point, which product sells, and the conversion rate. With data from steps 1-3, this stops being a leap of faith and becomes a calculated expansion.

The Bear House, Bewakoof, and The Souled Store have expanded their physical presence through stores and experiential retail to help customers discover, try, and trust their products.

A physical presence makes your online marketing work easier. It builds trust and lifts conversions, and it helps people remember you long after they've scrolled past your ad.

Meeting customers in person also makes them feel part of the brand rather than just buyers of it, and that sense of belonging is what turns a one-time shopper into a loyal customer who keeps coming back and brings others along.

The options are there - platforms like Broadway, regular events like The Lil Flea, and easier access to pop-up spaces across major cities.

See you next edition - same time, deeper insights.

Until then, keep building strategically.
Abhishek