“Channel strategy” is becoming a convenient excuse.

Everyone’s talking about pivoting between DTC and wholesale like it’s a strategic choice, but most of the time, it’s not.

It’s what happens when the fundamentals weren’t built in the first place, no demand planning, no inventory discipline, no real clarity on what actually sells.

So brands expand, pull back, rebalance… and call it strategy.

But switching channels doesn’t fix a broken system underneath it.

It just moves the problem somewhere else.