Since I don't drive to work and listen to the radio or watch broadcast TV, I'm in a bit of a bubble when it comes to fast-food marketing. Thankfully, The Wall St. Journal helps me keep a pulse on America.  What caught my eye today was the Journal's article about Chili's, inflation, and its value offering. I was surprised to read that the cost of a fast-food burger meal has risen 62% in the last six years (2019: $7.50 -> 2025: $12).  Chili's is using the inflationary news to promote its value, and of course, I see parallels with our business.

I've re-purposed the WSJ’s article as if it were about our industry and company:

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How Shop Local Capitalized on Inflation

The software maker touts how it helps with the constant increases in retail prices

When social media feeds lit up with complaints about how pricey tableware had become (“By the time you buy a plate for yourself, you’ve got nothing left to spend to put on it,” one woman said in a TikTok last year), Jason Solarek and his team saw an opportunity in the outrage.

The founder of the company that owns Shop Local decided it was time to touch a third rail of e-commerce marketing: He compared Shop Local's prices to McDonald's, a surprising tactic since software often doesn't want to be compared to fast food. Shop Local's brand clients, which include Juliska, Herend, and Vietri, can instantly share their entire product catalog with real-time prices with a store for $1.40/month--less than the cost of a McDonald's coffee. And if they are in the mood, receive unlimited wholesale orders for $49/month, too.  

Since the average dinner plate on the platform costs $78, and prices may change by 6%, that $1.40 pays for itself 4x over with just one sale per month. It's cheap insurance to prevent the retailer from losing money.

A retailer like The Ivy House in Dallas, TX, which Syncs 40,000 products from 60 brands via the Shop Local network, doesn't have to worry about updating the prices for those 40,000 products. The software updates all those prices for the store--and the other 1,450 Main Street shops that use the service. Retailers pick the brands for which they want prices to update automatically and choose a paid tier with, say, eight brands. Since some brands increased prices by about 6% in March, which translates to $6 on each $100 item sold, the paid tiers produce a multiple return on the subscription.

The average cost of a Vietri dinner plate has climbed 23% from $42 in 2019 to $52 in 2025, Shop Local said. And it's not just one brand--the company sees these increases across many brands. Lessons: prices are changing across the industry; they are changing more often than we think; and the increases have no end in sight.

This month, Shop Local is back at it, advertising a new price update bundle that puts that 6% back in the store owner's pocket for $39/month.

For most B2B companies, inflation has been a curse. But Shop Local has found an unusual way to turn inflation into a marketing pitch: since your website costs so much to maintain and is so important, why not go just a little bit more upscale? While client growth at e-commerce companies as a group eked out an increase in the U.S. last year, at Shop Local, they grew by 15%, Solarek said. 
 

The ads were “like a spark to get people to think about automated price changes,” said Solarek, 49, a software-products and retail-industry veteran. People are saying that e-commerce software that doesn't keep prices up to date “is ridiculous,” he said. “Your Shopify website won’t automatically update prices for you. And that costs a store owner 6% via inflation. We get you that 6% back in your pocket.”
 

On top of changing prices, the Syncing service increases sales by 18%, report retailers that use it.

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Thanks to the fine writers at the WSJ for the boilerplate. 

What I find interesting—and impressive—is that the economy keeps throwing mud at our retailers, and our platform's features keep excelling at wiping it off. We helped retailers through COVID store closures, then COVID-induced inflation, and then major increases in labor costs. Now, we’re mitigating our own executive branch’s whims.  

Team, thank you for building a platform that 'fries' the competition.

Read the full WSJ article about Chili's:

https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/chilis-kevin-hochman-fast-food-dining-1ad576c2