About Bridge: History, Motivation, and Milestones

We've Helped Indie Stores Sell $132,745,175

"We bring together the retail community to make running an online business easier."
~ Jason Solarek / Bridge Founder & CEO

Bridge retailers and brands at the Rosse showroom in Atlanta. Jason Solarek, Bridge CEO and Founder, shown on far right.

Shop Local members and Jason Solarek, Founder and CEO, at the Rosse showroom in Atlanta.

Shop Local helps the best independent retailers across the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean sell online. Our platform provides retailers and their brands with tools to collaborate, compete online, and prosper financially.

Our goal is to help indie stores offer a great shopping experience with the best products, competitive prices, and quick delivery.

We believe local stores are essential to our communities and the retail industry.

Overview

Our History
Why Do We Help Indie Businesses?
Our Highlights
Platform Statistics
Letter from Jason: Thank You For Supporting Local Shops
Press Room: Bridge & Shop Local in the News
Partners: We Power Your Business...Who Powers Shop Local

Our History

Bridge was started to solve a pain point experienced by its founder. In 2007, Jason Solarek was running a small design agency that created and updated retail websites. When adding products to clients' websites, he found Excel and Dropbox frustrating to use and felt like they weren’t built to share retail products easily.

While thinking about his clients' businesses over a beer at Moran's pub in New York City, he noticed that Karen, who owned a retail shop in New York, was adding the same products to her website as Sallie, who owned a store in Missouri. Upon further consideration, he realized that many of his clients were adding the same items to their websites, week after week, thereby duplicating each other's work. Drawing the process on a bar napkin, he sensed an opportunity to help his clients save time and money. Solarek asked the retailers to team up with their popular brands and share the product data. Solarek asked the brands to input and maintain the data. With retailers and brands on board, Solarek set up a system by which the product data 'flowed downstream' to the retailers' websites.

Today, Bridge helps thousands of businesses in the retail industry share products, news, and market-sensitive data. In 2024, merchants will use our Shop Local e-commerce platform to sell tens of millions of dollars in goods. Helping them accomplish this is the Syncing service, which enables them to easily display up to 74,344 products from 114 home goods brands.

Why Do We Help Indie Businesses?

Rochester circa 1905

Shopping local is proven to help support our schools, families, and communities. Specifically, shopping local helps produce local jobs and generate local tax revenue. Due to this, Bridge supports shopping local and enjoys developing community empowering software.

Jason Solarek, Bridge's Founder and CEO, grew up in Rochester, NY—a city that has seen its ups and downs and can benefit from local businesses growing. Using Rochester as inspiration, we seek to help towns and cities of all sizes grow and 'own' their futures vs. letting a distant tech behemoth undermine their community.

Highlights

Original Bridge concept drawn on a napkin

2007

Jason Solarek, sitting at the pub Moran's in New York City, draws the concept for the Syncing service on a napkin.

2010

Bridge launches Bridge Store, an e-commerce platform that allows any business to instantly create an online store with a gift registry.

2011

Bridge is a finalist in the British Airways' small business contest.
Watch video

2012

Bridge starts holding annual seminars in Atlanta.

2015

Bridge starts holding training webinars for members.

2016

Bridge launches the bridal incentive program to motivate brides to promote their registries.

2016

Bridge creates free table tents and window decals for retail clients. These in-store materials increase awareness about the stores' gift registries.

2016

Bridge launches review software. Retailers start receiving a record number of reviews.

2016

Bridge creates the world's first 'dollartag.' Retailers can now tag products easily.

2017

Showrooms in Atlanta and Dallas start displaying Bridge table tents. These help brands connect with more retailers via Bridge.

2017

Bridge holds its first conference for brands in NYC.

2017

Bridge hosts 'Your Store vs. Amazon' seminars.

2018

Bridge creates the Smart Universal Login System. This enables visitors to log in once and visit many different sites without logging in again.

2019

Bridge pens the tagline "Small Store ~ Big Site" to showcase the massive online selection that Bridge retailers offer.

2019

Bridge launches a completely new version of the e-commerce platform. Bridge 2.0 is faster, has a cleaner aesthetic, and offers more powerful features.

2020

Bridge launches an updated version of its service. File Sharing enables businesses to more easily share files (PDFs, etc.) and have them appear in context alongside shoppable products.

2020

In response to the pandemic, Bridge helps members by offering financial assistance, a warehouse availability tracking tool, and monthly virtual meetings to share sales strategies from industry leaders.

2020

With trade shows running at limited capacity, Bridge launches a new Wholesale Service. The service helps members place orders 2x faster than other services.

2021

With the pandemic fading, the retail market rebounds and Bridge members' sales grow twofold to levels higher than pre-pandemic. Bridge processes a record number of orders.

2021

Bridge's Wholesale Service grows. Retailers praise the service for its ability to reduce errors and simplify the process.

2021

An analysis reveals that 99.3% of retail customers retain their Bridge Store service each month. Customer retention is an indicator of value and customer satisfaction.

2022

Bridge surpasses 1,100 retailers using its e-commerce software Bridge Store.

2022

Bridge updates its primary website address to shoplocal.org. We update client domains from *.bridgecatalog.com to *.myshoplocal.com.

2023

Bridge re-brands its e-commerce platform from “Bridge” to “Shop Local.” The update represents the platform's popularity with indie, Main Street retailers and our company's mission to support local shops and their surrounding communities.

Shop Local launches real time shipping tracker.

2023

Shop Local launches the ability for retailers, brands, and shoppers to track their UPS, FedEx, USPS, and DHL packages in real time. Members use the tracking service to more easily view retail and wholesale orders.

Shop Local Creates blueprint for helping merchants gain registry users.

2024

Shop Local creates a five-day blueprint to help a merchant acquire five wedding registries worth $5,000+. The plan places our best solutions and practices into an actionable sequence. We give this plan, free training, and materials (calendar, script, images, etc.) to our member stores.

2024

Shop Local launches the Brand File Center. Now, retailers can easily see all the price lists, catalogs, and files from their key brands on one page—without having to leave their account. Brands are able to quickly and easily share files with those merchants and reps without relying on Dropbox or other file-sharing services.

Shop Local by the Numbers

$130m+
Sold for Indie
Merchants

80k+
Wedding & Gift
Registries Handled

3,452
Brands In Our
Directory

114
Brand Syncing
Partners

90%
of Top-selling
Tableware Brands
Are Syncing Clients

1,499
Retailers Use
Our Online Store

18%
Sales Increase for
Retailers & Brands
with Our
Syncing Service

74,344
Products Instantly
Shared from
Partner Brands
with Retailers

$3.6m+
Saved by
Indie Retailers
on Website Labor Due
to Syncing Each Year

Thank You For Supporting Local Shops

We'd like to thank you for supporting indie stores.

What you may not know is that supporting a local store makes an impact. By supporting our 1,499 stores, you help a local community.

Shopping locally supports our roads, schools, and other community needs.
Supporting brick-and-mortar stores keep a bustling shopping district alive. Vacant stores can snowball; no one wants to see more empty storefronts.
Big online players sometimes ship goods with questionable authenticity and origin. In contrast, you can trust our indie stores.

My team and I are building an online shopping experience where local stores offer just as much selection as big, online players. We help 1,499 of America's best indie stores offer the best items with great prices and quick delivery.

Please keep supporting local indie shops that make your community: your community.

P.S. ~ You're invited to learn more about me and my motivation for Shop Local here.

Thank you.

Shop local,

Jason Solarek
Founder & CEO
Shop Local
E-commerce & Gift Registry Platform
Powered by Bridge
T: 1-212-254-9655
339 East 9th St.
New York, NY 10003

Press Room: Bridge & Shop Local in the News

October 2024

Tableware Today Column: Saying I Do to Registries

This article, which will appear in the December/January 2025 issue of Tableware Today, explains the importance of wedding ...
» Read More

August 2024

Tableware Today: New Leaderboard Column from Shop Local

Great news: Tableware Today, the bi-monthly print magazine dedicated to our industry, will be publishing our Leaderboard results ...
» Read More

April 2024