How Does the Product Syncing Service Work?

Bridge retailers at the Rosse showroom in Atlanta

For Retailers

  1. Your business signs up online for a free Bridge account. All accounts include access to:
  2. Add any product from any brand to your Bridge Store.
  3. For free, you list all the brands that you sell. Bridge offers you a directory of 2,986 brands from which to pick. You can add any brand to your account even if it's not in our existing master brand directory. Of these 2,986 brands, Bridge has formed partnerships with 112 brands. These 112 are Smart Brand partners. These Smart Brands share 64,532 products via the network.
  4. You send sync requests to Smart Brands that you sell. There is no charge for you to sync with a Smart Brand. You can sync with an unlimited number of Smart Brands for free. If you and the brand approve each other's sync request, all the brand's products appear in your Bridge account. Smart Products are updated for you and thereby save you time and money in product maintenance. You show more products than you'd traditionally be able to, and this increases sales.
  5. You decide if you are using the Bridge Store or other 3rd-party e-commerce software (e.g. Shopify, etc.) as your e-commerce engine. View examples here of how stores have integrated with Bridge.
  6. If you are using Bridge Store as your e-commerce engine, you can add your own products to your Bridge Store. For example, you can add one-of-a-kind items such as unique jewelry or antiques.
  7. If you offer a gift registry program, you can use Bridge's gift registry software to show these registries. Family and friends can visit registries on your Bridge Store and make purchases.
  8. Customers can check out via your Bridge Store. You'll receive an email with the customer's ordered items, billing information, shipping information, telephone number, and email. If you have real-time credit card processing set up with Bridge, your Bridge Store will ask the customer for their credit card information during checkout. The payment will appear in your bank account within a day or two. If you do not have real-time credit card processing set up, you'll use the telephone number in the order email to call the customer and collect credit card details via telephone. You will key the credit card number into your in-store terminal.
  9. To fulfill the order, you will view the order and determine if the purchase is a registry order or a general public (non-registry) purchase. If the order is a general public purchase and the item needs to be delivered to the customer, you'll check if you have the item in stock. If you have the item in stock, you can ship it. If you do not have the item in stock, you contact the brand (vendor) or your sales rep to place an order. If the brand drop ships, you may ask it to do this. If the purchase is a gift registry purchase, how you handle the order depends on if you give the actual item or a registry credit. If your store gives the registrant registry credit, you can do this. (You do not have to immediately ship registry purchases.)
  10. You'll receive a weekly email with prices changes, new items, and best sellers.

Using the Product Syncing service, your customers can shop from 1,000s of items, and you save yourself hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars on website maintenance.

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Jason Solarek (Bridge) with brand representatives Andrew Pickard Morgan (Pickard China), Marisa LeDonne (Rosenthal) and Tim DeVine (DeVine Corp.)

For Brands

Vendors, Manufacturers, Distributors, & Suppliers

  1. Your business . You may use Bridge’s online store service (D2C), gift registry service, and wholesale service (B2B).
  2. Starting at $24/month, you may subscribe to the Product Syncing marketing service. You can sync products with up to 25 retailers. You can sync products with an unlimited number of your sales reps and other business types for free. There is a one-time $229 setup charge.
  3. The Bridge coaching team will help you import your items into your Bridge account from an Excel file. We can help you add pictures to these items. Using our software, you will be creating a duplicate of what is on your website on the Bridge platform.
  4. We'll train you to update and organize your Smart Products.
  5. Once you are happy with the presentation of your products, we'll officially make your brand a 'Smart Brand' and help you sync with authorized retailers and reps.
  6. Once you activate your Smart Products, your products can appear in your authorized retailers' Bridge accounts. Any changes that you make to your Smart Products will occur on your Bridge retailers' accounts instantly. For example, if you add a new item, it will appear on all your Bridge retailers' accounts. If you change a price, it will change on all the accounts. From the retailers' perspective, your items appear to be self-updating and 'smart'. Therefore, we refer to your items as Smart Products and to your brand as a Smart Brand.
  7. You'll send sync requests to the retailers with which you wish to sync products. If the retailer approves your sync request, your synced products will appear in the retailer's Bridge account. The retailer will no longer need to ask you for Excel files to upload to its site. You can invite any retailer to join Bridge and sync with your products.
  8. When a retailer sells one of your synced products via its Bridge Store (or third-party software), the retailer will receive the customer's order via email. If the retailer has the item in stock, it will ship what it has in stock. If the retailer does not have the item in stock, it will contact you or its sales rep to place an order. If you drop ship, it may ask you to do this.
  9. To help you measure your Product Syncing performance, Bridge will send you a daily email informing you of any sales relating to your brand.

Using the Product Syncing service, you'll be controlling your product on your retailers' websites and helping them show more and sell more. You'll speed your product to market and streamline communication.

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