Material Possessions, a gift shop in Illinois, needed a quick solution to boost its online presence. With Amazon and Covid-19 nipping at indie stores' heels, stores need to quickly boost their online offering.
In just 24 hours, Material Possessions opened a Bridge account and is currently offering 15,000+ products for sale. The retailer can sell these products directly from its Bridge Store--or it can export the products and import them into its parent website (https://materialpossessions.com/).
For example, Material Possessions' Bridge Store offers:
Bridge helped Material Possessions save thousands of dollars in labor. Bridge also helped it save months of time. The store pays nothing to sync products from Smart Brands. The brands pay Bridge for the service and often consider it an advertising expense.
In addition to products, Material Possessions also gained access to 40 important features such as gift registry software and a gift card tool by joining Bridge.
Material Possessions is an example of how Bridge is quickly and cost-effectively helping indie stores to stop Amazon's in-roads and operate during Covid-19's retail freeze.
Online shopping now accounts for 25% of retail sales. In the future, as Covid-19 restrictions ease, online shopping will continue to grow. Sadly, since many indie stores are not prepared for the rush to online shopping, they may reap little of this growth. One-hundred thousand stores are predicted to close in the next five years (Source: Wall St. Journal, May 15, 2020).
Stores that are not using services like Bridge's Smart Products service are likely doomed. These stores will have far fewer products online and spend massive amounts of time and money to try to dig themselves out of a 'product hole.' Stores like Material Possessions will use Bridge to survive and thrive.