A retail client recently decided they'd like to delete some past wedding registries to "save money." This raises the question, "Does deleting old registries save money?" We assessed the question and found that deleting old registries likely doesn’t save a retailer money. The reason is that it costs more to replicate our automated marketing efforts with more costly manual efforts.
How a company's sales and growth can be affected by the message it conveys to customers.
July 18, 2023
Allbirds stock is down 95% since its November 2021 initial public offering. People may say the company launched the wrong products (did you buy one of their puffer jackets?) or tried to grow too quickly. I believe there is a larger reason: you can’t scale a company by leading with an environmental message—which is Allbirds’s pitch. Consumers rank saving the planet as one of their least pressing concerns when making a purchase. The leading factors consumers look for when ...
Read More
How we can acquire new prospects by leveraging our existing network of customers.
June 2, 2023
In Andrew Chen’s book The Cold Start Problem, he breaks the network effect into three parts: engagement, acquisition, and economize. At Shop Local, we rely on the network effect and its three parts. I feel that we’re succeeding in terms of engagement but need improvement in acquisition.
Engagement
We use the 64,000 products in our Syncing service to engage 1,200 our retail clients. We email them new intros, price updates, archived items for these synced products. Once they ...
Read More
In this new webinar for sales reps, I share why your retailers are struggling online and underselling your lines. I share how you can help them and boost your commissions by 18%.
How allocating our resources efficiently can help us save time, save money, and deliver value to our customers.
May 9, 2023
You've heard of Salsa-fy? It’s national, was started in Dallas, is used by 60,000 employees, and is used at more than 1,600 corporate locations. Salsa-fy helps businesses steer clear of trouble, offer the best value, and ensures profitability. You may interrupt me here and ask, “Jason, don’t you mean the software company Salesify?” No, I’m talking about the restaurant chain Chili’s and its approach to managing salsa, french fries, and its business. ...
Read More
How we can celebrate indie stores and promote sales by hosting a Save Local event.
February 23, 2023
When one thinks of shopping locally, some consider it an act of charity. One may pay more and get less selection. That’s not a recipe for success. In contrast, the world’s most successful retailers, Walmart and Amazon, operate on just the opposite principles: low prices and massive selection. When I’m in Walmart's Panama City Beach location, it’s so massive I feel like I’m in the Giants' stadium. Amazon sells 12m items on its website (350m if you count the third-...
Read More
Bridge will pay 15% of your advertising costs for ads in Tableware Today and other applicable publications. For example, if you pay $2,000 for a Tableware Today ad, we'll pay you $300 towards the ad.
Benefits:
Save money. Make your advertising budget go further.
Get more retailers to sync your products.
Sell more. When retailers join you on Bridge, they report selling 18% more.
Show your indie retailers you support the shop local movement.
When we talk about prices, there are two prices that are important:
The price that we charge clients.
The price our clients charge their customers.
We normally talk about the former, aka how our prices compare with other competitors, like Shopify or wholesale services like Faire.
Of increasing importance to us is what our retailers charge their customers. Walmart recently announced that it was taking brands to account and pressuring them to keep ...
Read More
Your Bridge now makes it easier for you to connect with and sell your brands’ products. We have added a new page to invite brands to sync products. This page significantly reduces the number of steps that your store takes to invite a brand.
There is no charge for a member to send sync invites or sync products with a brand. Product Syncing is free for retailers, sales reps, trade marts, and interior designers. Participating brands pay for the service.
 ...
Read More
We've added a new feature to your Bridge account: a registrant can now request redemption of a gift purchased on their registry.
When a registrant is logged in to their registry, they will see a "Request redemption of this gift" button next to items that have been gifted to them and that have a qualifying order status. The registrant can click the "Request redemption of this gift" button and fill out the form with the details of how they would like their gift to...
Read More
142 of our retailers are using a sales program called Bridge. A store uses Bridge to more easily sell our products. I think Bridge would be a good fit for your business, too. I’m writing to invite you to join us on Bridge.
Bonus: Join us on Bridge by next Friday, May 6th, and Skyros Designs will give you a $200 shopping credit with us.
Retailers that use Bridge report selling 18% more. In fact, our best ...
Read More
We are pleased to participate in a promotion with Casafina Living. Please find the letter that Matt Hullfish, National Sales Director, shared with his retailers below.
Thank you,
Jason
..............
Dear Friends and Family of Casafina,
272 of our retailers are using a sales program called Bridge. A store uses Bridge to more easily sell our products. I think Bridge would be a good fit for your business, too. I’m writing to invite you to join us on Bridge.
...
Read More
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 ...
Read More
Today’s Times shares that Amazon Prime members often spend twice as much compared to those that aren’t members. This led to me ponder: What if a first step to reducing Amazon’s monopolies is just canceling a $119/year ‘membership’? Prime may be Amazon’s strength—as well as its achilles. If we can find a way to undermine it, I believe one can save money and our communities.
This is our 'Save Local' seal. Save Local has a double meaning: one can save money by shopping locally and they can support local businesses.
Shopping online may result in shipping charges. When shopping local, one can skip the shipping charges--and receive the item instantly.
A hallmark of indie stores is that they are often in walkable areas. For this reason, the sticker has a shoe and a bicycle. When one shops at big box stores, one often doesn't walk. They drive. Similarly,...
Read More
How can you more quickly add products to your website? We have a solution. Bridge's Smart Products can help retailers add thousands of products in minutes at no cost. Brands pay for the service.
How you can save:
Save Time: Retailers spend weeks each year adding products to their websites. Bridge calculates that a retailer often spends 50 hours to add one thousand products to a website. If they were to add, for example, two thousand products, it would take 100 hours. In today's era, a
This drawing shows how the Smart Products service speeds products to a retailer’s website. A brand traditionally has to 'break' its website contents down into pieces (product data and images), and then share this with the store piecemeal via Dropbox or another file-sharing service. Bridge's service helps brands and stores skip these time-consuming and expensive steps.
In the example shown, the retailer Cook's Station wishes to add Joseph Joseph products to its website. Without ...
Read More
Last week, a Beatriz Ball sales rep helped Sara, the owner of The Monogram Shoppe in Indiana, succeed online. As you know, everyone is shopping online. Here is how the rep helped the store:
The sales rep provided a Bridge sign-up sheet to the store.
The store used the sheet to ask Beatriz Ball and other brands to sync products.
The store emailed Bridge this sheet.
Bridge quickly processed this sheet and emailed the store back a free Bridge account.&
Good news: Bridge will pay10% of your advertising costs.
For example, if you pay $1,000 for a Tableware Today ad, we’ll give you $100. If you pay $2,000, we’ll give you $200.
Benefits:
+ Save money. Make your advertising budget go further.
+ Sell more. When retailers join you on Bridge, they report selling 13% more product.
+ Show more of your product on your retailers' websites.
Shown here are two examples:
+ Waterford print ad in Tableware Today.
+ ...
Read More