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DTC isn't just another sales channel—it's an **11-point margin gain** that funds your product roadmap without raising prices.
38%
of total sales
11 percentage points
compared to wholesale distribution
228 branded stores
globally and maintains a deliberate portfolio split
$180
for a Cloudmonster in Zurich sees the same ticket…
On Holding reported that direct-to-consumer revenue now represents more than 38% of total sales, according to TradingView analysis of the company's financials. The shift has widened gross margin by approximately 11 percentage points compared to wholesale distribution, strengthening the Swiss running brand's ability to hold premium price points and fund continuous innovation cycles.
On operates 228 branded stores globally and maintains a deliberate portfolio split: DTC channels (owned retail and e-commerce) alongside selective wholesale partnerships with specialty running shops and premium department stores. The brand protects map pricing across all touchpoints, ensuring a customer who pays $180 for a Cloudmonster in Zurich sees the same ticket in Chicago and on the company's own site. That consistency, combined with the margin lift from cutting out intermediary markups, gives On room to reinvest in materials research and athlete sponsorships without compressing unit economics.
The mechanism is straightforward: every dollar a customer spends in an On store or on the brand's website flows through at a 60-70% gross margin, compared to 48-52% when the same shoe moves through a wholesale account. On keeps the retailer's cut—typically 40-50% of the end price—and uses that cash to underwrite technical development like the brand's Helion superfoam and to sponsor visible athletes including Hellen Obiri and Zach Bitter. The wholesale channel still matters for discovery and geographic reach, but the DTC engine funds the brand's premium narrative.
A small physical-product brand can run the same architecture at modest scale. Start with a Shopify storefront priced at $39/month and list your hero SKU at the full retail price you want the market to recognize—no launch discounts, no Amazon race-to-the-bottom. Simultaneously, approach three to five specialty retailers whose customers match your target profile and offer them terms: 50% off wholesale, minimum opening order of 12 units, and a signed agreement that they will not advertise your product below map. Ship those accounts, but direct all owned marketing—email, Instagram, SMS—to your DTC site. When a retailer moves inventory, they reorder. When a customer finds you in-store and later visits your site, they see the same price and you capture the next purchase at full margin.
The second move is to resist platform marketplaces for your core SKU. On sells through its site and owned stores first, using wholesale as a curated discovery layer rather than a volume dump. A founder working alone can mirror this by keeping the flagship product off Amazon and instead using that channel only for accessories or entry-tier variations that carry your brand name but not your hero margin. Protect the premium SKU for channels you control, where you collect the customer email and the full economics. When your DTC mix crosses 30%, you have enough margin cushion to test higher-cost materials, better packaging, or a second colorway without waiting for a wholesale PO to fund it.
The broader pattern is simple: distribution is a margin decision, not just a reach decision. Every channel you add changes your unit economics and how much cash you have to improve the product. On built its DTC share point by point, and now that share funds the next generation of foam and the next athlete signing. A small brand does the same thing at 100 units instead of 100,000—own the customer file, defend the price, and let the margin delta pay for what comes next.
The branded-identity layer Chiefs of Staff and heritage CMOs route through — your name imprinted on real authorized stock, your pick of 200+ brands and 70,000 products, shipped from one accountable house. Nine editorial desks publish the intelligence those operators read before they sign.
200+authorized brands
70,000products · virtual proof on each
9 deskspublishing daily
1997one house, since
70,000 SKUs · virtual proof in 60 seconds · no platform fee · blind-shipped · ASI #217876
Your next customer won't visit your website. Their AI will.
AI assistants have quietly taken over the first step of buying — they answer from catalogs they can read and shortlist whoever can actually ship. Two questions now decide whether you exist to that buyer: can a machine read your catalog, and can you fulfill the order. Most brands fail one or both and never find out why the orders went elsewhere. The winners of this shift aren't the loudest. They're the most readable. Build for the machine that's about to do the shopping.
Built by the craft floor — apparel, media, packaging, and secure print.
This trade runs on hands, not desks. Imprint manufacturing & Komori heritage press through approved vendors · Canon high-speed secure-media operations is a craft floor — genuine Six Sigma discipline applied to ink, thread, foil, and registration, where a hundredth of an inch is the difference between a brand that reads serious and one that reads cheap. POPS4 is built by exactly those operators: independent, boots-on-the-ground engineers who carry their own book, read a client in microseconds, and put their name on every run. Beyond our own Virginia Beach floor, we work with a vetted network of craft manufacturers across the US — each meeting the highest excellence in QC standards in the industry, each a specialist in its own discipline — so apparel, hard-goods imprinting, media manufacturing, packaging, and secure printing all go to the bench built for them, coordinated from one accountable hub. Short-run from twenty-five units, volume to five hundred thousand. Two hundred authorized national brands, seventy thousand SKUs with virtual proofing on every one. Art archived for instant reorders. Net-thirty corporate terms, NDA-standard white-label — your name on the work, or none at all.
Strategy, positioning, identity, creative, and messaging — wired into an AI system that publishes and distributes on its own. Nine editorial desks generate the authority, the production house ships the physical proof, and the attribution layer tells you which post sold which SKU. What you get is an operating layer — content, catalog, and order path under one roof — that keeps working whether or not you are in the room. Built for principals who would rather own the machine than rent the agency.
Named-account programs — one desk, quiet delivery, NDA-standard.
One point of contact who already knows the file, so nothing restarts from zero between engagements. The work ships blind, under NDA, with your name on it or none at all. Built for single-family offices, heritage-house CMOs, sports-ownership groups, and the agencies that white-label our production. The relationship is the product; the merch is the proof of it.
SFO · Chief of Staff desk. Principal household, properties, aircraft, yacht, calendar, philanthropy — one file.
Shop seventy thousand products. Virtual proof on every one. 24/7.
Drop your logo on any product and see the virtual proof before asking. Quote routes direct to the desk. MCP catalog for AI agents. Celeste for the fast conversation. Full self-service checkout in development.