Direct to Consumer Recruiters
Growth, digital marketing, ecommerce operations, fulfillment and executive leaders for DTC brands, marketplace sellers and online retailers.
Hiring for a direct-to-consumer business is a different discipline from hiring for a traditional retail or wholesale operation. DTC roles blend brand, performance marketing, and operations in ways that generalist recruiters often misread, and at a growth-stage brand a single wrong managerial hire can stall a channel, a category, or an entire fiscal year. SundryHall works as specialist direct to consumer recruiters, helping ecommerce and DTC brands across the United States hire permanent, managerial, and executive-level talent through a search process built specifically for the consumer sector.
What makes DTC hiring distinct is the breadth each role carries. A growth marketing lead is expected to understand paid acquisition economics, customer lifetime value, and creative testing in the same conversation. An ecommerce manager is judged on conversion rate, site merchandising, and the operational reality of fulfillment and returns. A brand director has to protect a point of view while still answering to contribution margin. Hiring well for these roles means assessing commercial judgment alongside channel expertise, and that is the assessment we are built to run.
Our search work spans the functions that carry a consumer brand: performance and growth marketing, brand and creative, ecommerce and digital trading, retention and CRM, merchandising and product, supply chain and operations, and the commercial leadership layer above them. We recruit at permanent, managerial, and executive level, from the first senior hire into a founder-led brand through to building out a full leadership team ahead of a funding round or a wholesale or retail expansion.
The process itself is deliberately specialist. We map the relevant market rather than relying on inbound applications, approach candidates who are performing well in comparable brands, and screen against the commercial context of the role rather than a job description alone. Shortlists are built to be genuinely comparable, with clear reasoning on where each candidate is strong, where they would need support, and how they are likely to perform against the brand's stage of growth. Clients get visibility of that reasoning rather than a stack of résumés.
If you are planning a managerial or executive hire for a direct-to-consumer brand, or you need a view on what the market looks like for a role before you commit to a search, we are happy to have that conversation.
The hiring problem DTC brands face
DTC companies scale quickly, and their org charts rarely follow a template. A brand at one stage may need a performance-driven marketing manager, then a head of supply chain and a VP of ecommerce who can own the full P&L within the next growth phase. Generic job boards generate applicant volume, but volume is not the problem. The strongest candidates in the DTC space are usually passive: they are already employed, performing well, and not browsing job openings at all.
The cost of getting this wrong compounds. A vacant growth or operations role in a fast-moving brand does not simply sit idle: it slows launches, stalls channel expansion, and pushes work onto a team that is already stretched. Meanwhile, the internal time spent screening unqualified applicants is time your founders and functional leads are not spending on the business.
That is where a specialist recruitment agency earns its place. We know where those candidates sit, what would motivate them to move, and how to present your opportunity credibly enough to earn a first conversation. Our job is to convert your open positions into a shortlist of qualified candidates you would actually want to hire, not a pile of applications you have to filter yourself.
In practice, that means approaching people directly rather than waiting for them to apply, qualifying them against the realities of your stage and structure, and giving you an honest read on what the market will support in terms of compensation, seniority, and timeline before you commit to a search.
What our DTC recruitment service covers
Our recruitment services for ecommerce and DTC brands run end to end. We scope the role with you and define the profile of the ideal candidate, source through our sector network and targeted headhunting, manage screening and the interview process, and handle offer negotiation through to placement and post-placement follow-up. Engagements run on contingent, retained, or exclusive terms, chosen to match the seniority and confidentiality of the search.
Alongside the search itself, we provide market intelligence that supports better hiring decisions. That includes salary benchmarking for DTC roles, talent mapping against competitor organizations, and practical advice on structuring your interview and offer process so strong candidates do not drop out mid-way to a faster-moving competitor.
Types of DTC roles we recruit
We focus on managerial and executive appointments across the functions that drive a consumer brand. The roles below are a selection and not exhaustive. If you are hiring for something not shown here, contact us and we will tell you whether it sits within our network.
Marketing and growth
Performance marketing leads, digital marketing directors, brand managers, and retention or lifecycle marketing managers. These are the people who own paid media budgets, email and SMS programs, and the customer acquisition cost targets that decide whether growth is profitable. Candidates from this part of our network typically understand subscription economics, repeat purchase rates, and how to balance new customer acquisition against lifetime value.
Ecommerce and digital
Heads of ecommerce, site merchandising managers, and digital product leaders responsible for the online storefront and conversion performance. Their remit usually spans the platform itself, the product and category pages that carry the assortment, checkout and payment experience, and the testing program behind conversion rate improvement.
Commercial and sales
Sales directors, key account directors, and commercial directors covering retail expansion, wholesale accounts, and marketplace channels. This is where a direct-to-consumer brand often needs people who can hold a national account conversation and a marketplace listing strategy at the same time, without losing the brand positioning that made the business work online.
Supply chain and operations
Supply chain managers, logistics leads, and operations directors who can build fulfillment capability as order volumes grow. Typical briefs include moving from a single third-party logistics provider to a multi-site model, bringing inventory planning in-house, and holding service levels steady through peak season.
Leadership and executive
General managers, VPs, and C-suite appointments delivered through our DTC executive search practice, handled with full discretion where a search is confidential. These assignments are mapped against the wider market rather than an active applicant pool, and we are able to run them quietly where an incumbent is still in the role or an investor process is underway. Each candidate we put forward comes with the reasoning behind their inclusion, so a founder or board interviews a short list with confidence rather than working through volume.
Marketplace and omnichannel hiring
Many DTC brands sell across their own site, Amazon, and other platforms at the same time, and each channel rewards a different skill set. What works on a direct-to-consumer storefront rarely translates cleanly to a third-party marketplace, where listing quality, buy box performance, inventory health and advertising efficiency all pull against each other. Marketplace hiring needs a recruiter who understands what those channels require, from marketplace account management and catalog operations to channel-specific performance marketing and retail media.
That understanding shapes how we brief, screen and shortlist. We look past job titles to the commercial detail: which marketplaces someone has traded on, whether they owned the margin as well as the revenue, how they handled seasonality, returns and fulfillment trade-offs, and how comfortable they are working between brand, supply chain and finance teams. Omnichannel hiring usually fails when a candidate has only ever operated in one channel and is asked to balance several at once, so that is exactly where we concentrate our questioning.
If your growth plan depends on people who have actually run marketplace P&Ls before, we can identify and approach them directly. Most of the strongest operators in this space are not browsing job boards, so we build a targeted map of the market, approach the right people discreetly, and give you a shortlist you can act on quickly rather than a long list you have to sift through.
How a search with SundryHall works
A search runs in five stages, so you always know what is happening, who we are speaking to, and what comes next. The stages below describe a typical assignment from the first conversation through to the new hire settling into the role.
Brief and scoping
We meet with you to define the role, the team context, the compensation range, and what success looks like in the first year. This is also where we agree the must-haves versus the nice-to-haves, the realistic timeline, and how the internal decision will be made, so the search starts from a brief everyone involved has signed off on.
Market mapping and sourcing
Our recruiters research the market, approach passive candidates, and draw on our established consumer sector network. We map the relevant companies and competitor teams first, then approach the individuals who fit the brief directly, including people who are not actively looking and would never respond to a job ad.
Screening and assessment
We interview and assess candidates against the agreed brief, so only candidates who meet it reach your desk. We cover experience, motivation, salary expectations, notice period and cultural fit at this stage, and we are honest with you when the market is telling us something the brief did not anticipate.
Shortlist and interviews
You receive a focused shortlist with clear candidate profiles, and we coordinate interviews and gather feedback on both sides. Each profile explains why that person fits the brief and where any compromises lie, and we handle the scheduling, the follow-ups and the feedback in both directions so momentum is never lost.
Offer and placement
We manage negotiation, support the offer through to acceptance, and stay in contact after placement to make sure the hire settles well. We talk to the candidate about counter-offers and resignation before they happen, and we check in with you and with the new hire through the first weeks in the role.
Why DTC brands choose SundryHall
We recruit exclusively in consumer goods and retail, so we understand the commercial pressures, seasonality, and unit economics that shape DTC hiring decisions. Margin structures, repeat purchase rates, and customer acquisition costs all influence which roles a brand needs next, and we factor that into every brief we take. That focus gives us a candidate network a generalist agency cannot replicate, and it means we can advise you on salary expectations, role design, and realistic timelines before you commit to a search.
We work as a long-term hiring partner, not a supplier of résumés. Our measure of success is the quality of the shortlist and the longevity of the placement, supported by transparent communication at every stage of the process. That means honest feedback when a brief is unrealistic, regular updates while a search is live, and a considered view on whether a candidate will still be the right fit twelve months from now.
DTC success depends on getting the right people in at the right stage of growth. An early-stage brand finding product-market fit needs different hires from one scaling paid acquisition or opening wholesale and retail channels, and our job is to make that hiring repeatable for you as those stages change.
Frequently asked questions
What level of roles do you recruit for DTC brands?
We focus on managerial, senior, and executive positions within direct-to-consumer and consumer brands. Typical searches include heads of ecommerce, growth and performance marketing leaders, brand and product directors, supply chain and operations managers, and C-suite appointments. We do not handle entry-level, junior or staff-level positions or internships, and we do not place temporary, hourly or staff-level contract workers; contract and interim appointments at manager level and above run through our interim practice. That keeps our network concentrated on the experienced talent our clients need.
How do you find candidates who are not actively looking?
Most senior candidates reach a shortlist through direct headhunting and our sector network rather than job board applications. We begin with market mapping to identify who is doing the equivalent role at comparable brands, then approach those people discreetly with a credible, well-briefed opportunity. Because the brief is clear on scope, compensation, and growth stage, passive candidates are willing to have a conversation they would otherwise decline.
Do you support hiring outside of pure-play DTC?
Yes. We work with consumer brands across food and beverage, beauty and personal care, fashion, and household products, including businesses that sell through ecommerce, retail, and marketplace channels simultaneously. Most DTC brands now sell across several channels, so we look for leaders who can balance owned DTC performance with wholesale, Amazon, and brick-and-mortar distribution.
What does the engagement cost?
Fees depend on whether the search runs on contingent, retained, or exclusive terms, and on the seniority of the role. Retained and exclusive searches are typically used for harder-to-fill leadership positions where dedicated research time is required. We agree all terms clearly in writing before any work begins, so there are no surprises later in the process.
Where do you operate?
We recruit across the United States, with offices in Atlanta, GA; Marlborough, MA; Parsippany, NJ; and Cheyenne, WY. Searches are run nationally rather than being limited to those locations, and we support remote, hybrid, and on-site roles depending on how the business operates.
Start your DTC search
If you have open positions on your DTC or ecommerce team and want a shortlist of candidates worth interviewing, talk to us. We'll discuss the role, the level of experience you need, and the kind of brand environment the hire will be stepping into, then go to market on your behalf.
Call +1 888-202-9809 or email [email protected] to discuss your hiring plans with a specialist recruiter. Whether you're replacing a key team member, building a function from scratch, or scoping a role you haven't hired for before, an initial conversation carries no obligation.
Brief us on the role you need to fill
Tell us about the position, the location and the timeline. A consultant who works your sector will follow up to talk through how we would run the search.