Thank you for joining us last Thursday for the first annual brand conference. Here is our press release on the event. And thanks to Diane Seidle for helping. ;)
Bridge Creates a Stronger Community in First-Time Conference
New York, NY – On May 18th, 2017 Bridge hosted its first annual Bridge Brand Conference at the 41 Madison Merchandise Mart in New York City. Bridge, an e-commerce platform connecting 100's of brands, retailers, and sales reps, hosted sales managers from leading brands including Gien, Joseph Joseph, Lenox, Nambé, Rosenthal, WWRD, and Vietri.
"Retailers that use Bridge sell 13% more than those that don't, and due to that we thought a conference was in order to help brands tap into this growth," said Jason Solarek, Bridge's founder and CEO. During the three hour session, Solarek gave an overview of the digital retail landscape, shared the secrets of his platform's sales growth, and highlighted the platform's registry software. Attendees learned how Bridge is helping independent retailers fight back against larger companies such as Amazon and Zola in the tabletop category. With Bridge's platform, indies can easily offer up to 58,000 products from Bridge's partner brands—thereby helping level the playing field.
In a real-time demonstration, Solarek quickly created a retail website for an indie store pre-populated with a few thousand Nambé products.
"When a brand shares 1,000's of products with a retailer using traditional software like Dropbox," said Solarek, "the retailer often spends weeks and hundreds of dollars getting those products onto its website. We can do that instantly. Most brands should drop existing file-sharing software because Bridge is a better solution right out of the box."
"I was amazed at the simplicity of the Bridge software and what it could mean for our independent retailers," said Damon Willmott of Joseph Joseph. "The indies are losing market share to the more powerful online companies. Bridge is a dynamic solution that we will utilize with our customer base."
Solarek illustrated the power of Bridge's wedding registry software by showing that many of the 250 retailers that use Bridge's software rank on page one of Google—ahead of many national retailers' results. Solarek made the connection that helping retailers rank well in Google helps brands sell more because retailers are on the front line in helping move a brand's products.
"Most compelling to me was Bridge helping retailers appear on the first page of Google," said Hali Vradelis, Specialty Account Manager for Vietri. "Having worked for a company that helped businesses improve their SEO in the past, I realize this is no easy feat. To know that our retailers are given these tools to boost their online presence is incredible. Bridge is becoming a one-stop shop for our retailers with online support."
Conference goers learned how they can improve their communication with stores by posting their corporate messaging once in their Bridge account and having it appear on 100's of retailers' sites on the brand's respective page. "If Reed & Barton wants to get its message in front of its retailers, what better spot for it to appear than on the retailer's Reed & Barton page. This is messaging works because it's contextual."
The conference concluded with brands suggesting ways to improve the software, better utilize sales data generated, and connect with other retail businesses. "Brands sharing ideas—and needs—will make the platform better and the industry stronger," says Solarek.
"We were very happy to host the Bridge team at the Nambé showroom for the Bridge conference," said Shannon Brown, Director of Sales for Gift, Specialty & International at Nambé. "Bridge has built a wonderful tool tailored to the Independent store market, that is becoming incredibly valuable both for retailers and brands. The conference was a good way to better understand the power of Bridge and to network with other brands to understand best practices for using the platform."
Bridge is projected to helps its members sell $12 million in 2018.
Opening a Bridge account is free for all business types.