Important Lessons Learned from Nike's Return to Amazon

Nike originally left Amazon in 2019 to focus on building its own D2C ecosystem, aiming for greater control over brand experience and customer data. The D2C model initially paid off: during the pandemic, Nike’s online sales soared. However, as the market normalised, Nike faced declining sales and diminishing returns from its D2C-only strategy. A D2C-only strategy is also far more challenging today than it was five years ago. Customer acquisition costs have soared as digital advertising has become more crowded and privacy changes have made targeting less efficient, while brands face rising fulfilment expenses, increased cyber threats, and stricter data regulations. These factors combine to make D2C more costly, complex, and risky, pushing brands to diversify their selling strategies. The company also struggled with issues that plague many brands selling exclusively through their own channels: limited reach, missed revenue opportunities, and an inability to fully prevent bad actors from exploiting its brand on third-party marketplaces.

Nike's unique buying power enabled to get round this problem, but few brands have the leverage to negotiate “gated” selling environments, where only authorized sellers can list their products—Nike, Apple, and Chanel are rare exceptions. Most brands cannot demand this level of control and must instead navigate a crowded, competitive marketplace where unauthorized sellers and counterfeiters are harder to police. This is the challenge than single channel brands face today, whether it be a history of selling in store, wholesale or in salon only. They now have a mountain to climb to clean up the marketplacesThe lesson from Nike’s strategic pivot is clear: the future belongs to brands that embrace a connected, omnichannel approach. This means:

• Active presence on all major platforms (D2C, Amazon, physical retail, social commerce) to maximize reach, control, and customer experience.
• Leveraging technology (AI, data analytics) to unify customer data and deliver seamless, personalized experiences across channels.
• Investing in brand protection through partnerships and, where possible, gated selling arrangements to reduce counterfeiting and maintain quality.

Nike’s return to Amazon is not an admission of defeat for D2C, but a recognition that in a fragmented, digital-first world, brands must meet customers wherever they are—and control the narrative across every channel. For most brands, the path forward is not D2C, in-store or wholesale, but a sophisticated blend of both, underpinned by technology and relentless focus on the customer.