Today, a retailer in Tennessee called me with an issue. The person at the store was trying to add a Vera Wang pattern to the website. The employee couldn't find the items on Bridge. At first, we thought this may be an oversight on Bridge's part. But then we were told by the sales rep: the pattern had been discontinued. I was happy to hear this: Bridge helped the retailer put the brakes on adding a discontinued item. That is a success. Without Bridge, the employee would've proceeded to add discontinued items to its website.
Then, the employee saw on its Vera Wang Bridge page that there was a sale. The employee didn't know about this nationwide sale until it saw this banner on its Bridge site. Thanks to our software, this indie store has the same low sale prices as Amazon and other big retailers. It can finally compete online when there is a sale. The store didn't have to even know about the sale, much less change prices. Bridge did it all for the store.
The two topics above brings us to this question: what is the best way for a brand and its reps to communicate with a store? Many brands and reps send emails about sales and discontinued item. But: emails are often not opened and read. When Bridge uses MailChimp--supposedly a leader in getting email delivered and read--we see about a 35% open rate. I've checked and that's normal for anyone sending MailChimp email. Having 65% of recipients not read your email is not acceptable.
Sales reps make in person visits to stores. Reps call stores. But often after a visit or a call, what the rep may be forgotten. And a rep can't be in 100 spots (stores!) at once. Which leaves me with this conclusion: sales reps using Bridge may be the only true solution to successfully communicating a brand's materials.
Why? Recap: a sales rep can't be in 100 different spots at once. And email just isn't being read.
Bridge literally allows vendors to control their product on the retailers' sites. This is working really well--just like the above examples demonstrates.
What can reps do in light of this? The best thing a rep can do is get a store on Bridge because then the brand and rep are constantly 'touching' and controlling and informing stores about their brand. The rep can be in 100 spots at once via Bridge.