CPG Omnichannel Strategy: How to Win at Retail AND Online Without One Undermining the Other
Most CPG founders build retail and digital in silos. Jeff Church breaks down the channel sequence and pricing rules that let both compound.
Early at Suja, we made a decision I still shake my head about.
We ran billboards in Manhattan... while we had four Whole Foods stores in the entire city.
Four. Stores.
We created awareness with nowhere to convert it. Thousands of people saw those ads, got curious, maybe pulled out their phones to find where to buy... and found nothing. That experience didn't just waste money. It trained people to forget us.
I've watched hundreds of founders repeat this exact mistake, usually in the direction of digital. Building an Instagram following. Spending heavily on Meta. Launching a Shopify store. Grinding Amazon listings. All while their retail shelves are half-empty, velocity is mediocre, and buyers are calling to ask why the product isn't moving.
Here's the truth that took me thirty years and a $300 million brand to really understand: retail and digital are not competing strategies. They're compounding strategies. But only if you build them in the right sequence, and protect the integrity between them.
The Shelf Is Still Where Most CPG Brands Are Won or Lost
Before we talk channels, let me say something plainly: consumer packaged goods brands are still built at the physical shelf.
I know that sounds old-fashioned. Here's the math. A well-placed product in a top natural retailer gives you access to thousands of motivated consumers every week, passively, without spending a dollar on paid acquisition. Those shoppers are already in buying mode. They're already in your category. The retailer made them trust your presence just by putting you there.
Compare that to DTC. You're not driving to the consumer. The consumer is not coming to you. You have to advertise them in, educate them on why they should try you, convert them to purchase, and then hope they repeat. Every step costs money.
This is not an argument against DTC. It's context for why retail comes first. You build your proof of concept at the shelf. You build the velocity story. You build the distribution credibility that makes every other channel easier.
"The truth of the business is at the shelf." I've said it a thousand times.
Don't Confuse Distribution Gains with Velocity Gains
Once you have retail traction, here's where most brands stumble: they confuse getting into more stores with getting stronger in the stores they're already in.
Don't confuse distribution gains with velocity gains.
Distribution tells you how many places carry your product. Velocity tells you how many units sell per store per week. Gaining 500 new doors looks spectacular in a pitch deck. But if you're selling 1.2 units per store per week at those new doors, you're not building brand equity. You're setting yourself up to get cut at the next line review.
The same logic applies to channels. A lot of founders see their retail numbers plateau and immediately want to add a channel. Launch DTC. Get on Amazon. Add Thrive Market. Do Instacart.
Sometimes that's the right move. But sometimes it's avoidance. You're covering a gap in your core channel by adding surface area, when what you actually need is to fix what's happening on the shelf first.
Before you expand, answer the question honestly: is my velocity strong enough in my existing doors to justify the capital and attention this new channel will require?
If yes, expand. If not, shore up first.
The Channel Pricing Problem Nobody Warns You About
Here's the part of omnichannel that quietly kills brands: pricing inconsistency.
A consumer sees your product at Whole Foods for $5.99. They find it on Amazon for $4.50 with Prime shipping. They check your website and it's $6.50 plus $8 shipping on a single unit.
That consumer now feels like a fool for buying it at retail. More importantly, your Whole Foods buyer now has evidence that you're not a reliable partner. And when line review comes around, that pricing problem is going to cost you shelf space.
CPG is a "Penny Profit" business. The pennies matter. And so does every price point in every channel.
My simple rule: your online prices should never meaningfully undercut your retail prices. You can have value-adds that feel different... a subscription discount on your DTC store, a bundle with no direct retail comparable, a starter kit exclusive. That's channel differentiation. What you cannot do is sell the same exact SKU cheaper online and expect your retail partners to stay loyal.
Founders sometimes let this drift because a third-party Amazon seller undercuts them, or because they're chasing a quick DTC conversion. Both are lazy. Both cost you trust at the shelf, which is the hardest thing to rebuild once you lose it.
What DTC Actually Does Well
Here's what digital channels genuinely offer that retail cannot:
They give you data. When someone buys from your website, you know who they are. You know how often they come back. You know what else they bought. You can A/B test a new flavor before it hits a national retailer. You can see your repeat rate in near-real-time. These are consumer insights that used to cost brands hundreds of thousands of dollars in panel research.
They extend your reach beyond your geography. A customer in Memphis who loves your product but lives thirty minutes from the nearest retailer that carries you... DTC gives them access. That's genuine incremental revenue with zero channel conflict.
They create a direct relationship. Retail puts a buyer between you and your consumer. DTC removes that intermediary. That relationship, emails, subscriptions, community, is brand equity that no retailer can deactivate.
Amazon occupies a different space. I think of it less as a standalone channel and more as a discovery platform. Many consumers use Amazon to research products before buying in-store. If you don't appear when someone searches your category there, you're losing consideration at the exact moment they're deciding what to try. That matters even if they ultimately buy it at Target.
You can market your way into trial, but you cannot market your way into loyalty. Loyalty is earned in the product, and confirmed in the data. DTC gives you the data. Retail builds the scale. Both are necessary. Neither is sufficient alone.
Making Channel Concessions: The Walmart Lesson
In 2019, Suja wanted expanded distribution for our two-ounce wellness shots at Walmart. High-margin, high-velocity, exactly the kind of product that could perform in mass. But the buyer hesitated on the shots and came back with a counterproposal: he wanted a Walmart-exclusive plant-based smoothie.
Production hated the idea. Complex to make, slow to run, unattractive economics. Nobody believed in it.
We ran it anyway.
Not because we thought it was a great product. Because we understood that channel relationships are long games. Sometimes you take a trade you don't love to earn the equity that opens the next door. We made that smoothie at mediocre economics. In return, we got the expanded distribution on the shots.
Those shots hit nearly $2,000 per club per week... a $15 million annual run rate. And Walmart became one of Suja's largest customers.
The lesson wasn't about winning every negotiation. It was about understanding leverage, thinking long-term, and making selective concessions to grow the whole relationship.
Omnichannel strategy isn't just which channels to enter. It's how you manage the relationships within each channel to build something that compounds over time.
The Sequence That Actually Works
I've watched a hundred brands try to run retail and digital simultaneously from day one, spreading budget and attention thin across both, building mediocre traction in each. The ones that scale tend to follow a similar sequence:
Phase 1: Win at retail first. Pick a geography. Build velocity in your core accounts. Hit the benchmarks that let you tell a compelling story. Prove the product works.
Phase 2: Layer in DTC as an amplifier. Not a replacement channel. An amplifier. Serve loyal customers who move or can't find you locally. Test new SKUs before mass rollout. Build the direct consumer relationship that retail doesn't give you.
Phase 3: Expand to mass and multi-channel. Once you have proof of concept with strong velocity, a DTC channel that supports rather than undermines your retail relationships, expand your footprint and your digital channels in parallel.
The mistake is starting Phase 3 before you've finished Phase 1. I've seen founders turn on Instacart, Amazon, DTC, and pitch Walmart in the same six months when they have 200 stores and shaky velocity. They've built a house on sand.
Hope is not a strategy. Neither is channel volume.
Build the foundation first. Then let the channels compound.
Want the full omnichannel framework with real numbers and channel benchmarks? Jeff Church's CPG MBA program breaks down the complete channel strategy with case studies from Suja and beyond. Learn more at cpgfoundersgroup.com/mba-for-cpg. Or if you need hands-on help right now, the 90-Day Breakthrough program gives you direct access to Jeff and a structured plan to build a channel strategy that lasts.
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