D2C x Shopping

Hey readers,

Welcome to the twenty-third edition of D2C Cents!

This edition? We talk about:

• Why the traditional shopping funnel just died (and what replaced it)

• How Tier 2/3 cities became the real growth engine

• What your brand needs to do differently, starting today

There's a meeting happening in a Mumbai boardroom right now. A brand manager is presenting a slide. It has a triangle. "Awareness" at the top. "Consideration" in the middle. "Conversion" at the bottom.

Everyone nods.

And every Gen Z consumer that brand is targeting has already bought from a competitor in the 12 minutes that the meeting has been running.

How?

A 22-year-old in Lucknow scrolls Instagram. A skincare creator pops up mid-Reel explaining why niacinamide changed her texture. She immediately buys it from her “link in bio”.

They're skipping your funnel entirely. Here's how:

According to a recent Deloitte and Google report, four forces - Inspired, Immersive, Instant, and Intelligent commerce are contributing $100 billion of that $250 billion explosion. 

Each one kills a different stage of the funnel. Together, they make the funnel obsolete.

INSPIRED Commerce: Creators Are the New Storefront

You don't Google "best vitamin C serum" anymore.

The consideration phase - where you'd traditionally Google reviews, compare prices, and check return policies - dies on the spot. 

63% of Indian shoppers trust influencers for product information and recommendations, and 77% of Tier 1 and Tier 2 shoppers have made impulse purchases based on influencer content. 

The most telling proof? Micro-influencers with 5,000–50,000 followers are converting at 10–15% in categories like regional fashion and home décor, conversion rates most D2C brands would kill for from their paid Meta campaigns.

Nykaa understood this early. Their live shopping sessions on the app - where a beauty creator demos products in real time while viewers add to cart, regularly generate crore-scale revenue in a single session. 

Creators used to be a distribution channel for reach. They're now a distribution channel for revenue.

IMMERSIVE Commerce: AR Removed the Last Excuse Not to Buy

The oldest objection to online shopping was always physical. You can't try it on.

You don't know if the shade matches your skin. 
The fabric might feel wrong.
Can't see how the furniture fits your living room.

Gen Z doesn't have that problem anymore. AR try-ons eliminated that gap entirely.

The psychological effect is underrated. AR not only reduces return rates but also eliminates decision latency. When you can virtually try something on in 10 seconds, there's no reason to "sleep on it." 

61% of consumers globally now prefer AR-enabled shopping experiences, In India, where Myntra's entire product direction in 2025–26 has been built around this.

INSTANT Commerce: Quick Commerce Crushed the Consideration Window

This one is the most underrated funnel-killer of them all.

If a moisturizer can arrive at your door in 10 minutes, when exactly does the "consideration phase" happen?

The #1 reason for cart abandonment historically has been second-guessing - the overnight impulse that cools off by morning. Quick commerce proved they don't need that. In fact, they prefer not having it.

India's quick commerce market is expected to explode to $50 billion by 2030 - a sixfold jump. And 40 to 45% of that is now non-food: fashion, cosmetics, electronics, lifestyle goods.

INTELLIGENT Commerce: AI Agents Shopping on Your Behalf

Flipkart's "Flippi" and Amazon's "Rufus" track orders, notify users, and handle conversational queries end-to-end. 

Myntra's Maya acts as a personalised fashion consultant.

Instead of opening an app, filtering by category, scrolling 200 products, and reading reviews, a user types: "kurta for a beach wedding in Goa, under 3k, not something everyone's wearing",  and gets three curated options with a one-tap checkout.

The multi-step funnel existed because information was fragmented. AI collapses it into one conversation.

All of this would be interesting if it were only a South Mumbai, Koramangala, Bandra phenomenon.

It's not.

Tier 2+ cities contributed approximately 50% of all incremental online orders in 2025. The cities driving this are Indore, Nagpur, Surat, Kochi, Jaipur, and Lucknow. And the Gen Z consumer in Nagpur has the exact same access to trending Reels, Zepto deliveries, and Myntra AR try-ons as someone in Bandra.

Cargo pants have replaced kurtas in cities that market research still files under "traditional buyer behaviour." Y2K aesthetics are selling in places brands assumed needed "safe, conservative assortments."

A regional creator speaking in dialect, showing real-life use in a familiar context, builds the kind of local trust that a national campaign budget simply cannot buy.

Any brand "planning to focus on Tier 2/3 in 2027" has already lost those customers to someone who didn't wait.

Getting it right:

The beauty sector is the clearest example. Gen Z is expected to contribute $19 billion to beauty and personal care by 2030. Why does beauty thrive in this collapsed model? Because it's visually compelling, relies on creator-led validation, and offers instant gratification through quick commerce. 

Nykaa's live shopping sessions are generating crores in real-time sales. 

Still drawing triangles:

• Brands running separate "awareness" and "conversion" campaigns as if those are different moments for a Gen Z buyer

• Anyone treating creator content as "top of funnel" instead of a direct checkout driver

• Brands not on quick commerce for impulse categories (beauty, fashion, accessories)

• Every deck that says "Tier 2/3 rollout - Phase 3, Q4 2027."

What To Actually Build Now

Stop building these:

• Separate awareness and conversion campaigns (the funnel is one step now)

• Sponsorship deals where creators mention your product (make it part of their story)

• Consideration-phase content (Gen Z doesn't consider; they validate in real time through creators)

Start building these:

• Every content touchpoint shoppable - Reels, YouTube Shorts, WhatsApp catalogs, even DMs

• Quick commerce partnerships for any category where impulse applies (beauty, fashion, accessories, electronics)

• Tier 2/3 distribution with regional creators and local-language content from launch, not as an afterthought

• Creator relationships that look like storefronts, not endorsements

Track different numbers:

• Scroll-to-purchase time (not conversion funnel stages)

• Creator-attributed revenue (not impressions, not engagement rate)

• Quick commerce AOV versus standard e-commerce AOV

• Geographic penetration beyond the six metros

The funnel assumed a patient consumer. Gen Z is not patient, not because they have short attention spans and all the choice in the world. They don't like to wait. Discovery, validation, and transaction happen in the same scroll.

That Reel is the funnel. That creator is the reviews section, the comparison site, and the brand salesperson combined. That 10-minute delivery is the try-before-you-buy.

The brands that own the next decade will be the ones who understood, early enough, that Gen Z doesn't move through a funnel.

They move through a feed.

See you next edition - same time, deeper insights.

Until then, keep building strategically.
Abhishek