It was October 2021, and I had just finished my first in-person trends seminar since the pandemic impacted all industry shows. At the end of the image-packed program, an audience member raised her hand and challenged, “Do trends even matter anymore?”
It was a valid question. The pandemic had disrupted business, upended supply chains, transformed education, revealed vulnerabilities, altered priorities, and unexpectedly claimed many lives. The question was tinged with cynicism. Pent...
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HEREND HAS BEEN KNOWN FOR ITS BRILLIANT WHITE PORCELAIN SINCE 1826. ON THE EVE OF THE HUNGARIAN MANUFACTORY’S 200TH ANNIVERSARY (YES, WE’RE A TAD EARLY), WE SALUTE HEREND’S GOLD AND WHITE DINNERWARE DESIGNS, IDEAL EXEMPLARS OF CLASSIC ELEGANCE.
HEREND IS KNOWN AROUND THE GLOBE AS ONE OF PORCELAIN’S finest producers, a favorite of royalty, aristocracy, and folks like you and me who appreciate unparalleled quality and exquisite craftsmanship. Herend’s smooth white ...
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I was happy to see Tableware Today magazine share our experiences and lessons regarding the power of free shipping.
You're invited to read the article below:
.........................
THE LAST WORD
FREE SHIPPING PAYS OFF
by JASON SOLAREK
Most indie stores don’t have the technical ability or people power to track pricing and offer discounts like free shipping. Indie stores need this information or they’ll be left behind. This information can make a difference: in ...
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It’s a formidable task, overseeing product development for all of Lenox’s flatware brands, which includes Lenox, Kate Spade, Oneida, Cambridge, Hampton Forge, Reed & Barton, and Gorham. Your tenures at Oneida and Bed Bath & Beyond, as the tabletop buyer, provide a solid foundation for this position.
Prior to Oneida, where I was senior product marketing manager when Lenox acquired us, I was at Bed Bath & Beyond for 12 years, most recently as the tabletop buyer. My whole ...
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There’s nothing quite as cozy as grandma’s house. It’s like a warm snuggle of home cooked meals, fresh cut roses from the garden, doilies, chintz, needlepoint, vintage furniture, wallpaper, a breakfront china cupboard, Earl Grey in a collection of English bone china teacups, and lavender oil that soothes the senses and transports you to carefree days of yore.
The Granny Chic or Grandmillennial trend is all the rage, particularly among millennials. It’s an expression of...
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How having the right defaults makes decisions easier for clients and helps them be more successful.
January 27, 2023
When you look at your driver’s license, it lists if you’re an organ donor. Twenty years ago, only 20% of people were donors, but today 80% are—thereby saving millions of lives. Did people become more kind? No, the question on the application was changed from opt-in to opt-out. People signing up for or renewing a license are now by default enlisted in organ donation. Lesson: the right default answer in medical care can save millions of lives. Similarly, the right defaults ...
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When we brainstorm about making Bridge better, we want to turn over every stone. We explore many avenues, from increasing collaboration to lowering product prices to enhancing marketing. What if an improvement was right in front of us—constant to all of these concepts? Regardless of what feature we offer, there is one constant: navigation. Navigation is fundamental to allowing members to easily find what they need—and discover what they didn’t know they needed.
Bridge has something that every store needs, but doesn’t really want: product data. We get stores to trust us that they need our product data for 64,000 products from 109 brands. They really don’t want the data—they want the sales from it. The data itself is worthless, but the sales from it are invaluable. Do you know who also has this issue? Funeral directors. Last week's Wall Street Journal shares that mortuaries are leveraging bonsai trees, setting up bouncy castles, ...
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Scott Galloway, the NYU business professor and firebrand, pens a weekly, attention-grabbing article about business trends. In last week’s post, he noted the rise of the attention economy. (...Yes, my post is an attention-seeker writing about an attention-seeker writing about attention.) Comparing our current economy to those of the past, Mr. Galloway notes that today’s oil is time. He tracks the growth of digital companies like Netflix, Microsoft, Facebook, and TikTok that...
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Your Bridge has a new feature. You can now more easily manage your gift registry bonuses.
Background:
Your Bridge Store's Gift Registry software has a marketing program built in. This program gives registrants (e.g. brides) a monetary bonus if they complete five steps. Previously, when registrants reported that they added a link on their social media page, a store would have to ask the registrant on which platform they added the link. The same process occurred when the registrant reported ...
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Amazon issued a press release stating that it is fighting with 10,000 Facebook groups that sell fake Amazon reviews. It’s ironic, since Amazon has been a chief promoter of the avenue allowing this behavior: Section 230. Section 230 allows tech platforms to host and indirectly promote just about any type of bad behavior, including illegal behavior (fake review services and yes, human trafficking, murder-for-hire, etc.) and then say it’s just a community space and belatedly remove the ...
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NYT: Amazon claims to not be responsible for what it sells
Amazon sells you an item, gets it from its warehouse, and delivers it to you—but says that it is not a seller, shares Moira Weigel in this past weekend’s Times. This shields it from accountability to customers that receive harmful goods. Amazon is using a similar excuse that Facebook and social media platforms use regarding harmful content: don’t hold us accountable; blame our users, even if we provide the service ...
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There are approximately 40 online e-commerce providers. These software providers help other businesses sell online by offering them the ability to run an online store. These providers include Bridge as well as Shopify, Magento, Big Commerce, BigCartel, Square, and Weebly. Does Bridge offer a different (better?) experience than these other platforms? We believe the answer is yes. We also think our 960 retail clients agree: 99.7% of our retailers retain our service each month.
I recently saw an advertisement for Windows 11 in Wired magazine. I thought: “Wow, finally something from Microsoft that someone can understand: a logical name for their software offering.” I recall a time when Microsoft had a confusing litany of software names including: NT, 98, 2000, Millennium (ME), Windows XP, and Vista--before finally relegating those clumsy names to the desktop recycle bin and adopting a simple, progressive number system. Apple has been naming its ...
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Jim Collins, in his book BE 2.0, explains how purpose and mission are important to companies. To help explain this, he uses the metaphor of crossing a mountain range and seeing a star on the horizon. Your purpose is to reach the spot on the horizon below the star. The current mission is climbing up the mountain you’re on. The next mission is climbing up the next mountain and so forth in order to get closer to the spot on the horizon. You will have many missions, and may never ...
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When HFN magazine shared new introductions from the Atlanta show, Bridge was happy to see that five out of the 11 brands featured (45%) are Bridge partner brands. Why is this important? Retailers using Bridge will immediately display these new introductions in their Bridge Stores without any work or money spent. This technology allows the retailers to more quickly market and sell these products.
Brands featured in the article that are Bridge partner brands include: