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.
While drinking Athletic, a non-alcoholic (fake!) beer, I noticed that its box proclaims that it gives back 2% to local trails. I love walking trails, and I thought: the next time I venture to have a sober night, I’ll pick up another box of Athletic. (Thanks, Athletic, for giving out $2.5m in trail grants.) Warby Parker gives a pair of eyeglasses for each pair bought (they've given 10m pairs!), while Bombas does this for socks. Bookshop.org gives a percent back to small ...
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Your Bridge has a new feature: You can now easily assign your business's POS and website software.
In the example shown, the store has selected Intuit: Quickbooks as their POS software. When assigning Intuit: Quickbooks, Bridge software shares that 59 other businesses also use this POS software.
The store has selected Shopify as their website software. By assigning Shopify, Bridge software notifies the store that 103 other businesses also use this website software.
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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 ...
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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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Google is often considered the first stop when searching for information. Looking for a product? You'll likely head to Amazon.com, where due to its 350m product listings, 25% of purchases reportedly start. Facebook will be your go-to for finding friends and family due to its 2b profiles of people. Airbnb lets you search 5.6m places to stay. These businesses are likely your choice because people want a massive selection when conducting a search. Many of the world's most ...
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Whenever I visit my 76-year-old mom in Myrtle Beach, SC, she picks me up and the oldies station is playing in her car. I’ve tried changing that dial, and one has a better chance of outmaneuvering tennis star Daniil Medvedev. I imagine the oldies music brings her back to her youth. I read a study that people’s favorite song is often when they were 17 years old. That’s right: the 'best songs’ may not be the best songs but rather simply be what you heard in ...
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George Lois, the adverting icon, wrote Damn Good Advice for those in the advertising field. In one section, he encourages us to highlight a truth. This may even include an assumption about a perceived weakness. Following George Lois' advice, I came up with these two pieces of ad copy for Bridge:
We’re smaller than Shopify. And that’s why you get more with us.
Shopify watches its stock price. We watch our customers' needs.
This graphic shows the situation in which many retailers find themselves. Many retailers are stuck trying to connect their digital wholesale buying and their stores’ websites.
On the left, we see wholesale software operators, including MarketTime, Juniper, Faire, Bridge, etc.
In the middle is the retailer.
On the right we see retail (D2C) software providers, including Bridge, Shopify, Big Commerce, etc.
The software entities on the left should connect ...
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In the movie Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon, who plays a handsome MIT janitor moonlighting as a math savant (can one say, “Hollywood career vehicle”?), woos a young lady (played by the actress Minnie Driver) by outmaneuvering a few competing, obnoxious cads. When Damon’s character gets the girl's telephone number, he proudly shows it to the other guys and boasts, with his South Boston access, “How 'bout ‘dem apples?” I imagine Tim Cook imitating this...
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When talking about memberships and subscriptions, these two business models are sometimes interchanged but actually are different. They often differ in their pricing, customers, and offerings. A subscription is often not a membership, but a membership often encompasses a subscription. A membership is often an elevated and more powerful subscription that collectivizes and leverages the subscribers.
What They Have In Common
With both models, you often pay a fee and receive a ...
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In the past, we’ve used spin classes and gyms as inspiration for Bridge. We see them as metaphors for helping retail business owners. The founders of SoulCycle, Elizabeth Cutler and Julie Rice, must have been eavesdropping on us: they are expanding their spinning approach to another sphere. The Times reports they have started Peoplehood, a business that seeks to help people via self-help (group-help?) sessions. It’s SoulCycle for the soul&...
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About two weeks ago in Charleston, SC, in spin class where I sounded like I was getting a hair transplant, I enjoyed being at once together with my friends in the class and yet competing with them. When they peddled harder and stood up, I wanted to also. Our competing didn't mean that there was one winner and everyone else lost. It wasn’t a zero-sum game. In that spin class, we all won. After that class, we all felt great. Competition is an ...
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When I flew home yesterday from Charleston, while most people were seeking relief from their sunburns and reminiscing about their vacations, I was delving into The Wall St. Journal’s profile on Tracy Britt Cool, an ex- Berkshire Hathaway star. Mrs. Cool’s new company Kanbrick invests in businesses with $10m - $50m in revenue. What does Mrs. Cool look for when investing in a company? People and moats.
At Bridge, we’re reading Jim Collins’ Beyond ...
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Stores and brands sometimes ask us: How does Bridge compare to Faire?
I thought we'd compare the two service providers.
Similarities: Bridge & Faire
Audience. Both service the retail industry. In particular, both service brands and retailers. Bridge also services sales reps, and Faire tries to steer clear of them--which is one reason reps don't like Faire much.
Delivery method. Both are online platforms.
Service offered. Faire is a wholesale marketplace. It
Businesses like Walmart, Disney, and Discovery are bundling services and adding the “+” suffix to denote them (e.g. Disney+, Discovery+, W+, etc.). In a recent article in RetailDive, we learn that Walmart is giving its customers free, six-month trial Spotify accounts. I think W+ bundling services is smart. Last week, I compared running a gym to offering software. I spoke about bundling services with things that people like to increase their usage, such as work ...
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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.
In a recent NY Times article about working out, the author Christie Aschwanden gives readers tips on how to make working out more enjoyable. (Read the article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/19/well/move/habits-motivation-exercise.html). In reading this, I saw many parallels between working out and helping our stores get their websites ‘in shape.’ The author encourages readers to not think of working out as exercise and instead think of it as "hanging out with friends...
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Peloton’s new CEO, Barry McCarthy, was recently interviewed in the New York Times (Read the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/19/business/dealbook/barry-mccarthy-interview-peloton.html). The authors asked Mr. McCarthy if he thought that everyone who needs a workout bike already had one. They questioned where else a company making stationary exercise bikes can go (…an ironic question for a bike product that literally can’t move). The Times wanted to know what ...
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