Just a couple of short decades ago, brick-and-mortar was the retail powerhouse. Sure, catalogs and QVC were other paths for people to purchase some products, but nothing came close to the frequency at which the American consumer strutted into a physical storefront to check off their shopping list.
But then, in the early 2000s, something shifted. With over half of US homes making room for a personal computer, ecommerce started really coming into its own. The idea of buying something online — without seeing it, touching it, or trying it on — brought out equal parts optimism and skepticism from pretty much everybody.
Businesses also weren’t sure how to best approach ecommerce, and even infallible behemoths like Amazon were on extremely shaky ground 25 years ago. An online presence was seen as a nice-to-have channel back then. But today? A retailer would be dead in the water without that sweet, sweet dot-com.
Ecommerce has grown significantly since the turn of the 21st century. What was once the Wild West of the World Wide Web, an unknown factor that many predicted would flop, is now entrenched in how retailers do business.
In fact, in Q3 2024, online retail sales made up more than 16% of total retail sales in the US, up from 0.8% in the year 2000.
We’ll say what everyone knows: Online shopping has grown every year since. More people are turning to the internet to get their goods, and an ecommerce presence is now very much a must-have versus a “maybe someday.”
And even though it’s now 2025, online brands still have a lot in common with the early days of intrepid ecommerce adopters. Retailers are still grappling with how to best leverage the intangible space, how to sell more, how to scale and stay alive another year, and how to embrace emerging tech to do so.
If you’ve been wracking your brain and scraping the very bottom of your toolbox as you search for something else, some magical sales channel, to give you a boost in 2025, we have just the tool for you (and it even comes gift-wrapped).
Today’s Go-to Online Sales Channels
Master the in-person and online mashup.
Despite growing adoption of online shopping, and many folks of younger generations preferring digital shopping over physical, brick-and-mortar isn’t going anywhere. It’s a stronghold sales channel, the very bedrock of retail, and just under half of shoppers will choose in-person shopping over online any day.
With such a loud and proud fan club, it’s no wonder that a physical storefront is a must-have sales channel. However, it’s just as important to evolve the shopping experience and merge it with its digital counterpart.
Even if people are walking into your store to make a purchase, your website is still very much a part of that sales channel. Eight in 10 shoppers use your site to research products and make purchase decisions, which means you need to have an omnichannel approach to sell more today. If your website is an afterthought, those coveted moments of research about your product are out the window (along with your sale).
With platforms like Shopify, Squarespace, BigCommerce, and beyond democratizing ecommerce, there’s truly not an excuse to be offline today.
Expand your store’s online presence with marketplaces.
Now that an online store is table stakes for retailers, it’s important they now expand their digital footprint and explore online channels beyond their own site.
Etsy, eBay, and the aforementioned Amazon have become staple marketplaces for online brands. These marketplaces feature seemingly infinite products and come loaded with pre-existing customers who rely on them as a one-stop shop for finding the best prices, products, and brands on one website.
Marketplaces are extremely popular, with Amazon alone accounting for more than one-third of US ecommerce sales. This isn’t entirely surprising when you factor in that 56% of shoppers start their product hunt on Amazon (only 42% start their searches on search engines).
Amazon is big enough that it’s started making and selling its own branded commodities, but 68% of its sales come from independent sellers, aka direct-to-consumer brands. And that’s a smart move.
While selling on a marketplace in conjunction with a website may seem like it could cannibalize direct sales, the upside outweighs that risk. When people are starting their product search on Amazon more often than not, you want your products to show up in the results. For what you sacrifice in branding, margin, and support, you may very well make up in awareness and customer growth.
Go all in on wholesale?
Wholesale is another sales channel that not only puts your products in front of more people through more pages on the internet, but it’s also a surefire way to sell more bulk orders. Ca-ching!
This tried-and-true channel involves selling a large quantity of your products to another retailer at a discount so they can resell it on their own store shelves. It’s almost like having satellites of stores sprinkled around the internet all generating sales and putting your products in more hands.
This channel has been so good to some brands that they ditch DTC and end up going all in on selling only in bulk to other retailers. It’s not for every brand and their ideal audience, but if it is the primo path to a steady cadence of large orders, don’t fight it.
Ecommerce Sales Channels Gaining Traction
Social media is making big strides.
Marketplaces and wholesale have innovated ecommerce over the years, but some of the most thrilling ecommerce action has happened on social media. The rise of social selling is no joke as the industry is expected to bash through the $1 trillion mark by 2028, and shopping on these platforms has become a consumer norm.
Social selling, or selling products via social media, is considered “the future of shopping” by many brands and consumers alike. Not to be confused with popular marketing tactic social ads, social selling — or social commerce — is a more discreet and convenient way of selling.
A social media ad, which is still a totally worthwhile sales channel in itself TBH, is an ad placed on social media sites that typically sends people who click on it to a dedicated landing page outside of the app. It’s inherently salesy and promotional, and it doesn’t blend naturally in a long string of more organic social media posts.
Social selling, on the other hand, is a less in-your-face way of pushing a product and lets people convert without leaving the app. These product pictures and user-generated content look and feel like the rest of the typical social feed, but they also let people buy on the spot.
In 2023, the majority of brands dabbling in this channel said that sales were up, and nearly 90% of sellers say that social selling has been effective for their business. (And that’s probably because social media is now the preferred channel for product discovery among Gen Z, millennials, and Gen X.)
And most platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and (RIP) TikTok now don built-in tools for brands to make this magic happen.
Anyone hungry for an app?
Another sales channel that’s been gaining ground is the mobile app. Yes, yes, apps. Some brands like Nike, PacSun, IKEA, and newcomer Shein have developed their own apps that shoppers can download and shop from whenever they have the urge.
Mobile apps are expected to generate 10% of all US retail sales by the end of 2025, but pump the brakes before diving into these waters. Commerce apps have a lot going for them. This is a great channel for engaging customers through push notifications, keeping users immersed in products, and granting VIP access to in-app exclusives, it’s also one of the most expensive sales channels to tap.
App development and ongoing maintenance with every new iteration of Android or iPhone often means dedicating a whole team to the task, and if you don’t have millions of shoppers vying for your products, this may not make the most sense for your store.
Fresh Sales Channels to Try in 2025
Influencers gonna influence.
“Influencers” was a topic of conversation in at least nine sessions during the ‘25 NRF Retail’s Big Show, if that tells you anything about this trend as a sales channel. Unlike user-generated content, which is created by someone outside a company, then shared on that company’s owned social channels, influencers chat about products on their own social channels.
Much like marketplaces or wholesale sales channels, tapping into influencers for your next big sales channel is like getting your product in front of totally new audiences that you want to win over. Like Amazon’s devout shoppers, influencers have devout followers who, well, are influenced by them.
Roughly 70% of consumers trust influencers, and more than one-third of shoppers trust ‘em more than they trust the brand itself. Furthermore, eight in 10 US shoppers have purchased something as a direct result of an influencer.
In terms of sales channels, stats like these may have you foaming at the mouth. This is a growing industry that captivates a lot of consumers, but there are considerations to opine on before diving in.
- If you aren’t 1000% certain that an influencer’s audience isn’t aligned with your ideal customer, don’t risk it. You don’t want to alienate existing customers who may see your product being peddled by an influencer who doesn’t jive with your brand ethos.
- Know how to negotiate with an influencer. Are you ready to commit to a months-long project versus a one-off post? Are you paying them in free product, money, or both? How much creative control will the influencer get (and are you prepared to let go entirely)?
As influencers have more tools at their disposal to negotiate the best deals, and as the best influencers have no shortage of work as this channel keeps growing, you may find that this isn’t a sales channel that fits with your current resources.
- How are you tracking results from your campaigns? If you commit to an influencer, this could be one of your biggest budget-eaters in 2025, so ensure you know exactly how you’re tracking ROI before you get started.
All that said, 2025 looks like it’s going to be a perfect storm of shoppers hungry to buy from influencers, so if you find the right fit for your company, you will com eout on top.
Gifting is the gift that keeps on gifting.
On par with the goal of “I want to get my products in front of more people without exhausting my resources,” online gifting is one sales tactic that took off in 2024.
Ecommerce is playing a bigger part in shopping habits with each passing year, and that’s a fact that extends to everything we shop for, from products we buy for ourselves and for others (ahem, gifts).
Gifting is a massive trillion-dollar market with a notably surging corporate gifting cohort. If your products are highly giftable, this is a sales channel primed to be tapped in 2025, especially with the emergence of comprehensive online gifting platforms like Zest.
If you’re already selling some products on broader marketplaces like Sendoso and Snappy, that’s a great move for generating awareness (see marketplaces above). However, if you want to retain your customer experience, keep shoppers on your website, and keep more margin, Zest is the gifting platform you need to invest in.
Out of the box, the Zest gifting platform gives online stores everything they need to process concierge and customized gift orders at a scalable pace, but it also empowers brands to add dedicated self-service storefronts to their website.
What this means that if someone comes to your website ready to buy a bunch of gifts for their employees, family members, event attendees, etc., they don’t have to get bogged down by time-consuming steps like filling out a contact form or the process of going through the checkout one time for every gift.
Instead of friction, Zest makes it possible for people to buy one or tons of gifts (complete with personalized gift notes) in seconds. These gifts can be shipped directly to doorsteps for the ultimate surprise, or they can be sent digitally via email, link, or text.
For the first time ever, ecommerce stores can offer a gift-buying experience as smoothed out and optimized as the rest of their DTC customer experience. Less friction means more products purchased and gifts, and every gift unwrapped is getting your product into the hands of people who may not have ever heard of you otherwise.
Innovative brands like Milk Bar, Graza, and Levain Bakery leveraged gifting as a sales channel in 2024 by partnering with Zest. They understand that their products are highly giftable and their customers go to them to buy these gifts, so why not make it the best experience possible for customers and the easiest experience possible for their sales team?
Brands making it easy to buy gifts are selling more gifts. Imagine this:
- selling bulk gift orders overnight without lifting a finger
- automatically processing millions of dollars’ worth of products
- getting distributed to brand new shoppers without any additional marketing spend
- reducing gift order processing times from weeks to hours and extending sales windows by days or weeks
Dreamy, right? As people turn to the internet to buy more of everything, they’re going to be on the hunt for their go-to gifting destination, so why not make it your store in 2025?
2025 Is Going to Be Bright When You Bet on the Right Sales Channels
Now that you’ve nailed the whole ecommerce thing and have a website up and running, it’s time to rethink your sales channels. Where else can you gain attention? In what ways do your products fit into people’s lives? Are you most popular in other retail outlets, social media scrolls, or being given as a thoughtful present?
This year is going to be good no matter what, but you can make it great by putting fresh eyes on how your store is growing.
