Shopify store vs. Bridge Store. The orange dots represent similar features . The pink dots represent features that Bridge offers that Shopify does not.
Let’s imagine a retailer wants to operate an online store. What would the retailer and its customers experience when using Bridge vs other software? We found that a retailer using Bridge can go from having no web store to one with thousands of products in under an hour. And, there’s no charge. Other software doesn’t offer this ability.
To highlight our findings, we put together this comparison graphic showing Bridge Store and Shopify. (We chose Shopify to represent ‘other software;’ most providers resemble Shopify and vice versa.) ‘Gifts Galore for the Home’ is a sample store we created for the purpose of this test. Shopify is on the left and Bridge on the right. Orange dots denote similarities. Magenta dots represent features that Bridge displays out-of-the-box and that Shopify does not.
3 Key Findings:
1. The more brands a store can display, the better for the store and customers. Bridge offers retailers a directory of 2,800 brands from which they can add a brand to their store. Since a retailer may sell 100 brands, this is a big time saver. No other software has a built-in brand directory. A retailer has to start from scratch. In the example, the Bridge Store shows 38 brands.
2. Of these 2,800 brands, Bridge has partnerships with 110 of them. This partnership, through the Smart Products program, allows approved retailers to output instantly all the brand’s products on its Bridge Store. Retailers use this program for free since the partner brands pay for it. This program often saves the store thousands of dollars in labor and months of time. As a general rule of thumb, a retailer spends about $750 to add 1,000 products to website. The Smart Products service reduces this cost to zero.
Customers can buy the products provided by the Smart Products program and registrants can add them to a registry. Other software makes the retailer add and manage all the products itself. This is bad for the store and the customer. This results in the retailer showing just a fraction of what it can offer and customers getting fewer choices. In the example, the Bridge Store shows 5,900 products.
3. On Bridge, retailers receive a framework in which to organize products. This greatly helps customers navigate and shop. One can shop by designer, department, new items, sale items, or gift ideas. Other providers do not offer this framework.
Additional Differences:
1. Customers often report that the address and phone number are the top things they need to access on a website. On Bridge, this important information is easily visible. Other software often obscures this information or often doesn’t output it on the home page.
2. Google will rank the Bridge Store higher and show it in more results. This is due to Google tracking customer clicks and using this to calculate its rankings. On Bridge, customers have access to many features and therefore click through more pages.
Google also values reviews. Bridge includes a free customer review feature. Shopify and other software providers do not offer review software by default.
3. Websites should seek to reduce clicks and not hide important features behind icons. On Bridge Store, the search field is open and ready for a keyword to be entered. Customers can more quickly find items and buy.
Bridge Store offers small businesses a wide variety of features for free. They are included when one first opens an account. Bridge makes running an online store easier.