---
title: "D2C instead of marketplaces: two supplement brands, two ways out"
canonical: "https://en.prostor-agency.com/blog/d2c-instead-of-marketplaces"
summary: "Marketplaces give supplement brands sales and take the customer. How two brands we worked with built their own channel: one through an ecosystem and content, the other through subscriptions."
publishedAt: "2026-07-22"
---

Almost every supplement brand starts on marketplaces, and the
platforms hold their side of the deal: traffic and sales arrive. What
never arrives is the customer. The platform knows who they are; the
brand sees a row in a sales report. No base, no repeat contact, no
community, and the commission grows with the category.

We have built the way out twice, for two brands with two different
answers, which is what makes the pair interesting.

## Healthis: the ecosystem answer

[Healthis](/cases/healthis) was already at the top of the large
marketplaces when they came to us. The brief was an owned site that
could move the audience into a direct channel and anchor the brand's
ecosystem, with a revenue target measured in billions of rubles.

The centre of the build was a design system for a catalogue of more
than fifty products. Gradients from the packaging became the visual
logic: each product keeps its own accent inside one recognisable
system, so the catalogue scales without redesign. From kick-off to
launch took four months, with development by our partner Thunder Web.

The part that makes it an ecosystem rather than a shop window is the
content layer. A vitamin compatibility calculator (pick two vitamins,
see whether they combine and when to take them), guides, infographics.
People return to the site to use it, not only to buy, and every
return is a contact the marketplace would have kept for itself.

## Rithem: the subscription answer

[Rithem](/cases/rithem), a functional sports nutrition brand, faced
the same two ceilings: commission eating the margin and customers
belonging to the platform. Their answer centred on the product's own
rhythm. Sports nutrition is bought monthly, so the site is built
around a subscription, not a cart: pick a set, pick an interval, the
delivery arrives on its own.

The details decide whether a subscription survives: pause, swap and
cancel live in the account as self-service, so nobody writes to
support to change a date, and nobody cancels out of frustration
either. Payments, delivery and inventory run on an owned stack. Around
the commerce sits the brand: ingredients explained without marketing
fairy tales, usage scenarios, community channels as part of the
product.

## What the two stories share

Different mechanics, same three moves. Both brands gave the customer
a reason to come directly instead of merely a place to. Both built
around their product's natural rhythm: knowledge for a complex
catalogue, regularity for a monthly one. And both kept selling on
marketplaces; the owned channel is not a war with platforms, it is
the end of depending on them.

The result in ownership terms is identical: the customer base belongs
to the brand, repeat sales have a mechanism, and the margin stops
being shared by default.

If your brand sells well on platforms and owns nothing,
[that is the exact problem we like](/services/ecommerce). Send a link
to your storefront and we will reply with an honest read on what a
direct channel could look like for your catalogue.