It is seen that a new trend has emerged in the e-commerce space where food brands that became popular in the online market have started going back to the offline market and this is something that makes sense when you look at it with a different perspective. This is because of the trust and brand-building exercise that works well in the offline market and at less cost compared to the online market. Recently, a few online-only food brands have shifted their focus to offline channels.
The experimental fermentation company Acid League announced earlier this month that it’s shutting down its online store, effective January 31, and is ending some of its online-only product lines. That doesn’t mean it’s going out of business: Acid League is directing its resources “to ensure that all of our products are regularly available in retail stores in North America,” noting that producing all of its current offerings, keeping them in stock, and expanding its international retail lines was “totally unsustainable.” As the company has clarified, that change won’t affect orders made through separate sites like Amazon, just its own e-commerce platform. This December, the tahini company Soom also shut down its online store, similarly explaining that shifting away from e-commerce would allow the company to make its products more accessible and available at physical stores.
Fly by Jing founder Jing Gao told Eater last year that “being on a shelf is a billboard for your brand.” Just this week, Fly By Jing announced its chile crisps would be newly available at Costcos in the Northeast, as well as nationwide at Albertsons and Safeway stores. A recent report found that, apart from Gen Z, “most shoppers discover new products on store shelves, not online. Speaking as a consumer, I’m certainly more likely to buy one or two products from small brands if I can find them in one place than separate online stores, where I might find that the shipping costs outweigh my interest in testing out something new”. Not only that, it is obvious that “when a brand handles its own e-commerce, it has to deal with the tricky logistics and costs of order fulfillment”
