E-commerce Leads Levi’s D2C Growth Amid Online Shopper Craze

Levi Strauss & Co. sees its digital channels driving the growth of direct-to-consumer (D2C) sales, with e-commerce customers proving willing to pay full price and go for premium products.

On Wednesday (June 26), the apparel company reported in its second-quarter fiscal 2024 financial results that it reported 8% revenue growth, including D2C revenues of 8% globally and 12% in the U.S., while e-commerce gains were even higher.

“E-commerce continues to be a major opportunity for us, growing 19% this quarter, led by double-digit growth in the US, where we see strong full-price sales and the power of women, who now account for over 50% of the business in this channel.” President and CEO Michelle Gass told analysts on a call. “Ongoing initiatives to enhance our website and consumer experience, as well as provide a more advanced and expanded assortment, continue to drive our momentum across all our markets.”

Indeed, most consumers shop online directly from brands or retailers at least some of the time, according to new research from PYMNTS Intelligence, the latest edition of “How the World Does Digital.” The report examines the digital behavior of 67,000 consumers in 11 countries, who account for about half of global GDP.

The results show that consumers shop online directly from brands or retailers on average 6.7 days a month. Most consumers did it at least once a month, while only 21% did it at least once a week.

“Our transformational pivot to operating as a D2C company is generating positive results globally, which gives me great confidence that we will achieve accelerated, profitable growth for the rest of the year and beyond,” Gass said in a statement .

Additionally, young consumers particularly enjoy shopping directly from brands, suggesting an opportunity for this channel to continue to grow as these shoppers’ purchasing power increases. PYMNTS Intelligence’s report “The Online Features Driving Consumers to Shop With Brands, Retailers or Marketplaces” found that 43% of Gen Z said they definitely or probably prefer to shop eCommerce at a brand’s own online store, compared to 28% of the general population , which whole, which said the same thing.

Additionally, the same study found that consumers with more cash tend to choose D2C, and those earning more than $100,000 a year are disproportionately more likely to choose this channel.

It is worth noting, however, that most consumers still use stationary stores at some point in their purchasing path. PYMNTS Intelligence’s “2024 Global Digital Shopping Index: The Rise of the Click-and-Mortar™ Shopper and What It Means for Merchants” report shows that 71% of consumers in seven surveyed countries do so.

In particular, four out of 10 customers shop using Click-and-Mortar™, using both digital and physical stores, and one third prefer to shop exclusively in stores. As such, Levi’s is innovating its in-store experience.

“In the second quarter, we opened our largest store in Thailand at Central World Mall in Bangkok. This store is a pilot project where we are implementing insights from consumer research to improve the consumer journey in the store,” Gass said. “By making changes like more prominently displaying our denim lifestyle categories throughout the store and highlighting our premium collections, we drove revenue growth at both the top and bottom lines. The results are encouraging.”

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