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Going direct is argued as recovering the retailer's cut, and the cut was buying a bundle: demand generation, discovery, credit, fulfillment, returns, service, inventory and the risk on it. None of it stops being necessary when the retailer stops performing it — it moves onto your profit and loss, usually at worse efficiency, because you have less scale in every one of those functions than the channel did. This pack prices that bundle, returns the share of the margin that survives it, and separates the two ways a direct move fails: the unit economics, and the volume that follows you off a shelf. They fail independently and they need opposite answers. It stops on two conditions: nobody has listed what the channel does, and the acquisition cost came from customers the channel introduced you to.
What is the Distribution Rebellion Strategy Pack
The Distribution Rebellion Strategy Pack is a complete decision-support kit for one question: how much of the channel's margin do you actually keep? It is built around one organizing claim: the retailer's cut was buying a bundle of services, and none of them stops being necessary when the retailer stops. Sixteen files carry it: the foundations, a concept deck, a scored decision wizard, a recapture model blank and worked, the moves at each position, nine sourced rebellions, a fit worksheet, a roadmap template, a practitioner manual, a field checklist, and an orientation page.
The test that runs through every file
What the retailer's cut was buying, and what those functions cost at your volumes. It is the argument in the deck, it becomes the wizard’s axes, it drives the model’s inputs, and it reappears as lines on the checklist. That is what makes 16 files a product rather than 16 documents.
The model resolves to one number you can negotiate with: The recapture rate — the share of the channel's margin that survives doing its job yourself. It ships blank and worked, and every input is a named cell rather than a figure buried inside a formula, so the number arrives with its assumptions attached rather than on its own authority.
Why the retailer's margin in a direct-to-consumer paper is not the margin you keep
Demand generation, discovery, credit, fulfillment, returns, service, inventory, and the risk on it. Going direct does not remove those functions; it moves them onto your profit and loss, usually at worse efficiency, because you have less scale in every one of them than the channel did.
This pack produces the two numbers that decide the answer: the recapture rate, which is the share of the cut that survives, and the conversion share — how much of the volume actually follows you off a shelf. They fail independently and they need opposite answers, which is why so many direct moves are diagnosed as execution problems when they were never margin problems at all.
What is in the Distribution Rebellion Strategy Pack
- Foundations. The framework: what the cut buys, the recapture rate, the conversion share, and the two halts.
- Concept deck. Twenty-two slides for the board or commercial session, with the sourced rebellions and what each does not establish.
- Decision wizard. Eight scored questions returning the band, the weakest answer, and either of the two halt conditions.
- Recapture model. Ten years of both paths, the recapture rate, the break-even acquisition cost and the conversion share required.
- Strategies and tactics. The moves when you recapture nothing, when the volume does not follow, and when both work — plus four shapes a partial move can take.
- Case studies. Nine sourced rebellions read through what each had to replace — including two that reversed and one that built a channel.
- Fit worksheet. The single page of record: the list, the recapture, the conversion share, the channel's response and the reversal plan.
- Roadmap template. Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, a trigger and a quarterly reporting line.
- Practitioner manual. Writing and pricing the list, measuring acquisition honestly, the board paper, six failure modes and their indicators.
- Field checklist. The one-pager that survives outside the binder.
- About the package. What each file does and the order in which to run them.
Who the Distribution Rebellion Strategy Pack is for
An executive team with a direct-to-consumer proposal in front of the board; a chief financial officer being asked to fund a transition against a margin no one has subtracted anything from; a national accounts lead who has said three times that most of the volume will not follow and has not been asked to put it in writing; a chief operating officer about to inherit fulfillment, returns, and inventory risk that somebody else was carrying; a board member reading a mix target with no conversion evidence behind it; and the adviser who would otherwise start from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real decision is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.
An honest note on fit
This is a kit for running a decision, not a research report and not a course. Worked examples use an explicitly fictional company with numbers tuned to teach rather than to flatter. In the worked case the unit economics genuinely work and the move still fails: the recapture is real at $18.67 a unit, the break-even acquisition cost is twice what is being paid, and 35% of the volume follows where 56% would have to. That distinction, a conversion problem wearing a margin problem's clothes, is the finding the arithmetic alone will not give you.
Two limits are stated on the page rather than worked around. The pack does not price brand control, customer data, or the ability to set your own price; all three are real reasons to go direct and none can be measured here. And no recapture rate transfers: it is specific to a cost base and a search-intent profile at a moment, and no case in the pack gives you a number.
This decision, in two minutes
Short videos on companies that faced it, built from the casebooks this pack draws on.
Questions about the Distribution Rebellion Strategy Pack
- Is this an argument against going direct?
- No. It is an argument against going direct on the wrong number. Three of the nine sourced cases went direct and held, one built a channel from nothing and reached the highest sales per square foot in the United States, and one runs both permanently. What the pack refuses is the case that presents the retailer's margin as the prize without subtracting what that margin was buying — because on those figures the two cases that reversed both looked excellent.
- What number does the model produce?
- The recapture rate: the share of the channel's margin that survives paying for its functions yourself. It also returns the break-even acquisition cost, the conversion share that would make the two paths worth the same, and ten years of both. In the worked example a $58 margin becomes $18.67, the break-even acquisition cost is $88.80 against $44 paid, and the move still destroys $196m because only 35% of the volume follows against 56% required.
- We already sell some direct and the numbers look good. Do we need this?
- That is the position the pack is written for, and the good numbers are the reason. Every direct customer you have was acquired in a market where you are on shelves, so their cost is the cost of converting people the channel introduced you to. It rises as that pool empties: across a failed-brands sample it went from $34 to $57 in three years. A case built on the current figure is built on somebody else's demand generation counted as your own.
- Are the case studies real companies?
- Yes. Nine sourced decisions: Nike, the DTC cohort, Dell, Levi's, Tesla, Apple, Progressive, Atlassian, and Patagonia. Each is dated, read through what each one had to replace, and each states what its evidence does not establish. Two reversed, one ran the experiment in both directions, and one is included because its direct relationship was never bought at all. The worked model, wizard, and worksheet use an explicitly fictional company, labeled as such on every file.
- What if we cannot measure how much volume would follow us?
- Run a partial withdrawal in one market and count. Two quarters, one category, and a number with a market name attached instead of a percentage in a deck. It is the input the whole model is most sensitive to, and it is the one place where spending two quarters to find out is dramatically cheaper than finding out nationally — which is what both of the reversals in the sourced set did instead.
- Is this a subscription?
- No. It is a one-time purchase of a single-organization license, with no seat limit inside your organization and nothing to cancel.
- What is the Distribution Rebellion Strategy Pack?
- The Distribution Rebellion Strategy Pack is a decision-support kit for one question: How much of the channel's margin do you actually keep? It contains 16 files — foundations, concept deck, decision wizard, recapture model, strategies and tactics, case studies, fit worksheet, roadmap template, practitioner manual, field checklist, about the package — built around a single organizing test: what the retailer's cut was buying, and what those functions cost at your volumes. It is what a leadership team uses to run the decision and leave a record of what they assumed, rather than a report about the topic.
- Who is the Distribution Rebellion Strategy Pack for?
- Anyone who has to make this call and answer for it: an operator or owner facing the decision, the executive team running it, the board or investor testing the reasoning, or an adviser who would otherwise build the framework from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real decision is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.
- What is in the Distribution Rebellion Strategy Pack?
- 16 files in Word, PDF, PowerPoint and Excel: Foundations (Word + PDF) — The framework: what the cut buys, the recapture rate, the conversion share, and the two halts. Concept deck (PowerPoint + PDF) — Twenty-two slides for the board or commercial session, with the sourced rebellions and what each does not establish. Decision wizard (Excel) — Eight scored questions returning the band, the weakest answer, and either of the two halt conditions. Recapture model (Excel, blank and worked) — Ten years of both paths, the recapture rate, the break-even acquisition cost and the conversion share required. Strategies and tactics (Word) — The moves when you recapture nothing, when the volume does not follow, and when both work — plus four shapes a partial move can take. Case studies (Word) — Nine sourced rebellions read through what each had to replace — including two that reversed and one that built a channel. Fit worksheet (Word, blank and worked) — The single page of record: the list, the recapture, the conversion share, the channel's response and the reversal plan. Roadmap template (Word) — Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, a trigger and a quarterly reporting line. Practitioner manual (Word + PDF) — Writing and pricing the list, measuring acquisition honestly, the board paper, six failure modes and their indicators. Field checklist (PDF) — The one-pager that survives outside the binder. About the package (PDF) — What each file does and the order in which to run them.
- How is the Distribution Rebellion Strategy Pack delivered?
- As a single download of all 16 files, immediately after payment, with the same link sent by email. It can be downloaded 3 times and the link is valid for 30 days. There is nothing to install and no account to keep.