The consumer brands that want to take the pain out of shopping

'Direct-to-consumer' cuts out the middleman and simplifies buying experience

Today's expression: To try on
Explore more: Lesson #237
February 27, 2020:

What do brands like Warby Parker eyeglasses, Bonobos pants, Casper mattresses, and Harry’s razors have in common? They are all part of the direct-to-consumer revolution that is disrupting the traditional retail model. Direct-to-consumer brands are helping eliminate confusion, bring down prices, and make shopping fun again. Plus, learn the phrasal verb “try on.”

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The consumer brands that want to take the pain out of shopping

Hi there, thanks for joining us again for Plain English, episode 237. I’m Jeff; JR is the producer; and you can find all today’s episode resources at PlainEnglish.com/237.

Coming up today: There’s a new trend sweeping retail in the US and Europe, and it’s called “direct to consumer.” We’ll talk about what brands are doing to forge relationships with customers, cut costs, and make shopping fun again. The phrasal verb is “try on,” and we have a song of the week.


Inside the direct-to-consumer revolution

What do brands like Warby Parker eyeglasses, Bonobos pants, Casper mattresses, and Harry’s razors have in common? They are all part of the direct-to-consumer revolution that is disrupting traditional consumer brands.

What is direct-to-consumer? Let’s start with what it’s not. In a traditional retail model, there are companies that make goods, and different companies that sell them. That’s what happens when you buy Gillette-branded razors at a Walgreen’s drugstore, for example: Proctor & Gamble, which owns Gillette, makes the razors, and Walgreen’s sells them. The resulting shopping experience is miserable. The makers and the retailers seem to conspire against the consumer to make shopping for things like razor blades as difficult as possible.

Think about it. Razor makers come out with new versions all the time. Three blades, then four, then five, then seven, then back to five but with one on the back. They change the names and the packaging. This one vibrates; that one has a cool-glide strip. Then, they only sell you small cartridges at a time, often behind a locked case at the drugstore. Confusing, expensive, painful: for years, men accepted that this was the way to buy razor blades.

But two companies decided to change all that—right around the same time—and they were at the forefront of the direct-to-consumer revolution. These new direct-to-consumer brands try to take one painful shopping experience and simplify it. The makers of these new products sell—you guessed it—directly to the consumer. They skip all the complexity and the cost of going through a traditional retailer.

For example, Harry’s and Dollar Shave Club both made a small number of razor blades and sold them via the mail directly to consumers. Dollar Shave Club does so as a subscription. They each have only a handful of options and they deliver it right to your door via the mail. Simple, easy, cheap—pretty much, the opposite of how things were before. I have been shaving with Dollar Shave Club razors for about six years.

Consumers loved it for the simplicity and the price—but mostly because it took something painful and made it easy. And it’s not just for men’s razors. The same thing is happening with eyeglasses, mattresses, socks, men’s pants, shorts, women’s makeup, pet supplies, luggage, personal hygiene products, sneakers—you name it. In the old way of doing things, if you made a product, you had to find a way to get it on store shelves. You had to convince a network of distributors to place it in stores like Walmart, Target, Macy’s, and other big stores. But today, these direct-to-consumer brands go around the gatekeepers and promote their products on social media, in advertisements, with influencers, and on television. They take advantage of lean manufacturing models to make just as much as they need. Because they are close to their early customers, they can tweak their products quickly to consumer tastes. They prize customer reviews, so they’re attuned to customer service. And because there are fewer parties involved in selling directly to the consumer, the prices are a lot more reasonable.

Direct to consumer companies are some of the most exciting brands in America these days. If you listen to podcasts from the US, you’ve probably heard advertisements for Casper mattresses. They are one of the biggest podcast advertisers out there—and they claim to have the world’s highest-rated mattress. I remember what it used to be like shopping for a mattress. There are a handful of big mattress makers in the US and they each have dozens of models and brands and options. Casper makes a single model, and they found a way to compress it into a box that they can mail to your house. It’s genius: not only is the mattress comfortable, but it’s fun to open. They got a huge boost from Instagram influencers unboxing their mattresses in front of their adoring fans. I don’t have a mattress from Casper, but I do have one from another direct-to-consumer brand called Leesa. It’s very comfortable and I’ll never buy a mattress the old way again—that’s for sure.

Eyeglasses are another example. Glasses are maddening; they’re extremely personal and very, very expensive in the US, usually several hundred dollars for a nice pair, even though they’re not expensive to design and manufacture. The company Warby Parker lets you order 5 sample pairs online, try them on at home, and keep the one you want. You can even upload a photo to their web site and try on some pairs virtually to see how they’ll look on you. They cost between $75 and $100—a total bargain. And they’re stylish; just ask JR, who loves his Warby Parker glasses.

Instead of looking at a wall of different Nike sneakers, Allbirds will sell you one of just four models of men’s sneakers. Bonobos started by selling a single version of men’s dress pants after learning how much men typically hated the way dress pants fit. Bombas spent years engineering what they now claim are the world’s most comfortable socks. They come in a lot of colors, but just a few models. Away sells luggage; instead of confusing names, their models are called, “The Carry-On” and “The Medium” and “The Large.” It doesn’t get simpler than that. And if you buy a bunch of them, they fit inside one another, saving space in your closet.

A funny thing is happening with these companies now. They’re starting to grow up, and their bigger traditional rivals are taking note. Dollar Shave Club was bought by Unilever, a global consumer products company, for $1 billion; Gillette now offers razors by mail. You can now find Casper mattress stores in America’s malls. Harry’s razors are on the shelves at Target.


All I have to say is…I love it. I don’t know how companies got away for so long treating their customers so badly. Any time there’s a direct-to-consumer option for something I want, I seriously consider it. I’ve never ordered socks online before, but I’ll be on the Bombas web site this weekend.

Later this month, I’ll share some of the results of our Plain English listener survey. We’ve gotten hundreds of responses so far, and more are coming in every day. So if you haven’t had a chance to check that out, please visit PlainEnglish.com/Survey and tell us what you think. It’s just a couple of minutes, but it’s a huge help to us. PlainEnglish.com/Survey, and like I said, I’ll share the results of the survey later in March.

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Expression: To try on