Four of the top five direct-to-consumer (DTC) businesses in the UK are native to the British Isles – and they manage to drive people to buy around a quarter of the time, mostly through social media.

A study of 2,000 UK consumers by Rakuten Marketing found that 44 per cent of people point to Facebook as being the platform that raised their awareness of DTC brands, followed by YouTube (31 per cent) and Instagram (28 per cent).

11 per cent of respondents also backed micro-influencers as an effective means of piquing their interest in DTC brands.

When it comes to conversions, 17 per cent of consumers see Facebook as their most likely point of sale, while 12 per cent still rely on the brand’s own website and 14 per cent prefer cashback sites and voucher or discount code sites.

SimplyCook came out on top as the brand most UK consumers have heard of, with half having knowledge of the business. Among these consumers, 27 per cent have made a purchase. This second most well-known DTC was Made.com (44 per cent), followed by Dollar Shave Club (43 per cent), Birchbox (35 per cent), and Abel & Cole (35 per cent).

However, this none of these businesses had the highest percentage of consumers who have made a purchase from a brand they have heard of – that distinction goes to Tails.com. Despite only 26 per cent of participants being aware of the business, 33 per cent of those people had made a purchase from the brand.

	% of all UK consumers who have heard of the brand	Of those consumers who have heard of the brand, % who have made a purchase
SimplyCook	50	27
Made.com	44	24
Dollar Shave Club	43	22
Birchbox	35	28
Abel & Cole	35	21
Harrys	32	26
Tails.com	26	33
Casper	20	23
Glossier	16	26
Brushbox	15	21