Archive · 1 Oct 2026
D2C Brands Manage Rising Costs With Bulk Buys, Selective Hikes
Some online consumer brands are paying more for materials, packaging and delivery.
To control costs, they are buying supplies in larger quantities and improving their warehouses and supply chains.
Plum and Kapiva have raised some prices because they could not absorb all the extra costs.
Open Secret bought materials before prices rose and added warehouses to reduce delivery expenses.
Kapiva also began offering buy-now-pay-later payments.
About one-fifth of its prepaid orders later moved to this payment option.
The brands said customers have not significantly reduced their purchases after the price increases.
They do not currently plan more increases, although future changes could take time to reach stores because existing inventory remains.
Plum, Open Secret and Kapiva are using bulk procurement and supply-chain efficiencies to offset rising input costs.
Plum and Kapiva have implemented selective price increases where cost savings were insufficient.
Open Secret has stocked raw materials and packaging and expanded from one warehouse to three.
Kapiva introduced buy-now-pay-later about six months ago, shifting around 20% of prepaid transactions to BNPL.
The brands reported no significant demand slowdown after mostly single-digit price increases, with festive promotions expected to help.
- Who
- Founders of Plum, Open Secret and Kapiva, along with Flipkart executive Nishant Dalal.
- What
- D2C consumer brands described measures to manage rising input, logistics and cost-of-goods expenses.
- When
- The discussion took place on Wednesday; Kapiva introduced BNPL about six months earlier, and Plum said it raised prices this year.
- Where
- At a Flipkart roundtable.
- Why
- To limit the effect of higher input costs on consumers while protecting business costs and demand.
- Brands discussed
- Plum, Open Secret and Kapiva
- Main cost pressures
- Input materials, packaging, logistics and cost of goods
- Price increases
- Selective and largely in the single-digit range
- Open Secret warehouses
- Expanded from one warehouse to three
- Kapiva BNPL timing
- Introduced about six months ago
- Kapiva BNPL shift
- Around 20% of prepaid transactions shifted to BNPL
- Demand impact
- The brands reported no significant slowdown after recent price increases