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Automation Is the Future of Retail

How automation helps our indie retailers avoid $36,898/year on labor costs and empowers them to sell 18% more
Jason Solarek picture
Jason Solarek @ Bridge
January 20, 2025 • 9:12 AM
The retail industry is spending heavily on automation. Source: https://www.precedenceresearch.com/retail-automation-market
The retail industry is spending heavily on automation. Source: https://www.precedenceresearch.com/retail-automation-market
Automation by large retailers is shortening the amount of time a customer must (and will) wait for a package. Source: https://www.amsfulfillment.com/blog/about-2-3-day-shipping/
Automation by large retailers is shortening the amount of time a customer must (and will) wait for a package. Source: https://www.amsfulfillment.com/blog/about-2-3-day-shipping/
Image for Chalk 24909 image Walmart’s automation goals are shared in this The Wall St. Journal article.
Walmart’s automation goals are shared in this The Wall St. Journal article.
Retailers report selling 18% more due to our automation services.
Retailers report selling 18% more due to our automation services.
Our Product Syncing service automates the process of adding products to a website. Traditional file sharing requires 10x more manual steps.
Our Product Syncing service automates the process of adding products to a website. Traditional file sharing requires 10x more manual steps.
Average cost for a retailer to add 1,000 products to a website: Shop Local’s service vs. others.
Average cost for a retailer to add 1,000 products to a website: Shop Local’s service vs. others.
Our automation solutions helped Kenny Cohen, owner of Pittsburgh gift shop Contemporary Concepts, reduce his website labor costs by 86%.
Our automation solutions helped Kenny Cohen, owner of Pittsburgh gift shop Contemporary Concepts, reduce his website labor costs by 86%.
Automation helps us reduce a client’s operational costs—even below that of well-known, larger e-commerce providers.
Automation helps us reduce a client’s operational costs—even below that of well-known, larger e-commerce providers.
A retailer avoids $36,898 on labor costs on average by using our automated Product Syncing service.
A retailer avoids $36,898 on labor costs on average by using our automated Product Syncing service.
Our automated wedding registry service helped Jeffrey Bannon, who owns the namesake shop in Charleston, double his registry sales.
Our automated wedding registry service helped Jeffrey Bannon, who owns the namesake shop in Charleston, double his registry sales.
Example of a retailer’s product page showing a Synced Product. The product’s pictures, price, dimensions, organization, and 40 key variables are automatically updated for the retailer. Ref.: https://www.theivyhouse.com/details.cfm/Juliska?prodid=137242
Example of a retailer’s product page showing a Synced Product. The product’s pictures, price, dimensions, organization, and 40 key variables are automatically updated for the retailer. Ref.: https://www.theivyhouse.com/details.cfm/Juliska?prodid=137242
Example of a retailer’s brand page showing 1,000 Synced Products. The 1,000 products’ pictures, prices, dimensions, organization, and 40 key variables are automatically updated for the retailer. Ref: https://www.theivyhouse.com/collections.cfm/Juliska
Example of a retailer’s brand page showing 1,000 Synced Products. The 1,000 products’ pictures, prices, dimensions, organization, and 40 key variables are automatically updated for the retailer. Ref: https://www.theivyhouse.com/collections.cfm/Juliska
Example of what a retailer sees in their account showing how automation is helping them. In this example, this Dallas-based retailer sees that they are avoiding $4,340 in labor costs. They are also avoiding losing $10.78 on each item sold because brands raised prices 8% on 4,148 products in the last 30 days. Our service automatically updated those prices for the 4,148 products for the retailer.
Example of what a retailer sees in their account showing how automation is helping them. In this example, this Dallas-based retailer sees that they are avoiding $4,340 in labor costs. They are also avoiding losing $10.78 on each item sold because brands raised prices 8% on 4,148 products in the last 30 days. Our service automatically updated those prices for the 4,148 products for the retailer.
Example of a retailer’s website showing an explanation for how we helped them avoid a $10.78 loss on each item sold.
Example of a retailer’s website showing an explanation for how we helped them avoid a $10.78 loss on each item sold.
Example of a retailer viewing its Syncing products whose prices changed. The service automatically updated these 4,148 products. The retailer can see each item updated, including the retail price change and the percent the price changed.
Example of a retailer viewing its Syncing products whose prices changed. The service automatically updated these 4,148 products. The retailer can see each item updated, including the retail price change and the percent the price changed.
We started our quest to automate the retail industry in 2007 in New York City. We drew the Product Syncing concept on a bar napkin. Our road to accelerate the retail industry has taken nearly two decades of daily work..
We started our quest to automate the retail industry in 2007 in New York City. We drew the Product Syncing concept on a bar napkin. Our road to accelerate the retail industry has taken nearly two decades of daily work..
While automated solutions depend largely on software, these software solutions depend on people manually making the software. My colleague Moshe and me are two long-time software creators at Bridge, the company that manages the Shop Local platform.
While automated solutions depend largely on software, these software solutions depend on people manually making the software. My colleague Moshe and me are two long-time software creators at Bridge, the company that manages the Shop Local platform.
Postscript. A small dose of irony: we help businesses automate their needs, yet I get most of my news via a very manual medium—the newspaper. I believe that in general speeding up retail processes is beneficial, but that digesting news should be paced and done with moderation. It allows us to weed out noise and let the facts rise to the top.
Postscript. A small dose of irony: we help businesses automate their needs, yet I get most of my news via a very manual medium—the newspaper. I believe that in general speeding up retail processes is beneficial, but that digesting news should be paced and done with moderation. It allows us to weed out noise and let the facts rise to the top.
Dollars & Sense

Automation Is the Future of Retail

How automation helps our indie retailers avoid $36,898/year on labor costs and empowers them to sell 18% more
Jason Solarek picture
Jason Solarek @ Bridge
January 20, 2025 • 9:12 AM
Today’s The Wall St. Journal shares that Walmart seeks to automate much of its business. Automation reduces costs and often makes customers happier because it lowers prices and speeds up processes.

Try to Automate Everything
Indie stores need to follow in Walmart’s footsteps ASAP and automate as much as they can, including:
  • Product information, pricing, pictures, and more (including website listings). (Inventory.)
  • Stock.
  • Marketing offers.
  • Communications to customers (emails and texts). 
  • Payments.
  • Software updates. 
  • Security. 
Automation almost always involves computers, software, and even hardware—areas that are expensive, technical, and complex. For this reason, indie store owners often delay acting. They do so at their own peril: Each day, Walmart and other big-box entities are spending millions of dollars on automation. These investment benefits are snowballing and may eventually place indie stores at a disadvantage that is too steep to overcome.

Macro-Level Factors are Driving Automation
There are also other peripheral factors driving retail to automate. There are increasingly fewer people to do retail jobs because of shrinking birth rates, and labor laws have made hiring more expensive. Plus, mobile phone usage and e-commerce purchasing continue to grow. Expensive labor + online shopping = a digital retail future.

What Is Shop Local Doing About This?
Our service helps indie store owners avoid costly manual processes and gives their customers faster, better experiences.  

Syncing Service Details:
  • Our company offers 1,500 indie stores a service that automatically updates many of the best-selling products on their websites. 
  • Product Syncing helps stores automate product upkeep online.
  • The service updates 70,000 products in real-time from 110 Syncing partners, including Juliska, Vietri, and Le Creuset. 
  • The service saves our top-selling retailers an average of $36,000 on labor costs each year. 
  • The service saves our 1,500 indie stores in total $3.5m each year on labor costs.

Example: Retailers Avoiding Labor Costs

Retailer Name /  Labor costs avoided per year due to Syncing Products with their brands via Shop Local

Adler’s Jewelers: $41,068
Babcock Gifts: $45,304
B.C. Clark: $38,830
The Boutique Charleston: $35,720
Elizabeth Clair's:  $23,842
Friend & Co.:  $33,672
Ivy Cottage:  $18,522
P.S. the Letter: $53,586
Park Seven: $41,215
Pieces of Eight: $37,220
Average labor savings per merchant:   $36,898


Avoid Losing Money on a Retail Order
Retailers hate to lose money on an order. They often lose money on an order because the product sold had a wrong, lower, outdated price. Our Syncing service automatically updates prices on products thereby enabling the retailer to avoid losing money on orders.

Example: Retailer Avoids a 8% Loss
For The Ivy House, a premium tabletop shop in Dallas, TX, our service updated 4,148 product prices in the last 30 days for it. Since the brands raised prices $10.78 (8%) on these items, we helped the store avoid losing $10.78  per item sold. 


Communications (Emails and texts)
Below are a few notable automated emails our Online Store sends on behalf of our merchant clients.

Automated messages sent to customers / gift givers:
  • Order status alert via email or text.
  • Anniversary reminder. 
  • Review request via email or text.

Automated messages sent to registrants: 
Leaderboard
Our new Leaderboard is another automated example: These results, which give us key insights into the top-selling brands, retailers, and products from 1,500 merchants’ sales data, are tabulated and published without notable human effort each month.
View our Leaderboard: https://www.shoplocal.org/leaderboard.

APIs
We set up API services with leading carriers like FedEx and UPS to automate informing our merchants about their shipment’s location. We set up APIs with Shopify to automate updating products between their system and ours. 

"But wait...there's more...A free knife when you order today..."
We also automate the updating of their e-commerce software, marketing tools, and inventory. 


Robots Require People to Build Them
Ironically, automating things requires a lot of manual work (and money) behind the scenes. In 2024, we spent 20,000 hours on automating and improving the software for our indie stores. The Leaderboard, which I previously said runs with minimal human intervention now, initially took months to build—and we're still spending time each week to polish and enhance it. Robots always need to be oiled.

Automation is the future of retail, and this year we’ll continue building software to help our indie stores be ready for this. 

Recap: Benefits of Automation
  • Avoid and reduce labor costs.
  • Speed products to market.
  • Improve the presentation of products.
  • Avoid losing money on an order
  • Speed up communication with customers.
  • Increase customer satisfaction.



Read the full The Wall St. Journal article:
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-sp500-nasdaq-live-01-17-2025/card/walmart-appoints-new-e-commerce-chief-fOu8wJ2Txmd2EfaBvsif

 

Tags:
Automate wsj Walmart e-commerce

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