One of many brand advertisements from Nike

The real, strategic reason Nike is leaving Amazon

In business, it is critical to own the customer relationship.

Nike, one of the biggest brands in the world, has decided to stop selling directly to Amazon. It’s a rather remarkable move. While the original sales strategy was supposedly an effort to get Amazon to crack down on sales of counterfeit Nike gear, the fact they didn’t achieve that goal is unlikely the real reason they’re leaving.

Nike, long the brand marketer, is leaving because they’ve realized what direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands have already figured out. “Owning the relationship” with the customer via direct sales is not only more valuable than sales via a third-party platform, but it also helps facilitate future growth with the added benefit of a company being able to build brand via these direct relationships.

D2C Skepticism

Some look at the D2C strategy with skepticism and say that they must’ve hit a limit. There’s only so far they can go without diversifying distribution channels. That’s why they’re heading into traditional retail.

Despite the “see, I told ya it’d never work” air to these notions — there is some truth in them. Without scale and resources, there is only so much a startup can do to grow in the D2C space. But to me, it’s not that…