FOR SALES REPS AND BRANDS:
E-commerce sales are up 40%. Are your stores ready? Most likely, not.
You can help them. The quickest, easiest, most cost efficient solution for them is a Bridge Store. Bridge will pay you $100 for each retailer that you sign up for a free Bridge Store.
In this week's New Yorker magazine, Charles Duhigg explores how venture capitalists may be harming our businesses. The article shares that instead of the best company winning, the charismatic charlatan with the most venture capital backing may be winning. In WeWork's case, the company almost won by reaching its IPO. Yet, even bottomless buckets of money couldn't save the company from the economics of office sharing--and its wildcard CEO Adam Neumann.
We have a few businesses in our retail ...
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Tableware Today magazine asked 71 industry professionals for their thoughts on 2021. I was one of those asked, and shared these answers to Editor Amy Stavis' questions:
What will be the most significant change for our industry in 2021?
J: As the famous business leader Marc Andreessen said, software is eating the world--and it's eating our industry like never before with Covid-19. The question is whether you're eating or being eaten. We’re all in the software business now. ...
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Our indie retailers are being hunted by four major forces:
Amazon
Big-box stores
Brands (selling direct)
Zola
While we've known about Amazon and big-box stores for some time, they are becoming more sophisticated. Amazon is so powerful now that it's the focus of anti-trust inquiries by the government. Big-box stores are spending millions on their digital operations.
Bridge's goal is to give indie stores great software that reverses the gains being made by these forces.
...
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Your Bridge Store ranks highly in Google. As a test, try this: Google "Juliska Dinner Plate." In the results, you'll see two indie stores outperform Zola (a million-dollar funded online retailer) and Houzz (another well-funded, venture capital-backed player). The two indies stores do not have any venture capitalists or bankers funding them. They simply use: Bridge.
Thalia and Dahlia, an Ohio-based store, use Bridge. It ranks just below Saks Fifth Avenue--and it's just 3 ...
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Allison Zisko in this month’s HFN shares that The Knot has launched its own direct-to-consumer sales channel—seeking to cut out its long-standing brick-and-mortar partners like Macy’s, Target, and indie stores.
This new sales channel raises the stakes on the growing battle between The Knot and Zola.
Macy’s, Walmart, and Target would be wise to team up and launch their own gift registry platform—akin to how the TV networks collaborated to ...
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Zola's slowdown is good news for indie stores--but Zola will likely be back. While it is over-leveraged with venture capital and over-valued, the wedding registry business will rebound next year.
Indie stores are not the only ones to get a reprieve: market buildings were playing defense against Faire, the wholesale ...
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Curious why you don’t sell more online? Answer: selling online is brutally competitive. Just ask Brandless, a company with more than $100m in funding that just closed and laid off all 70 employees. Selling online often produces the opposite of what you’d expect: thin margins.
One bright spot in e-commerce: gift registries. Gift registry orders have higher margins, lower customer acquisition costs, and a built-in promoter for your site: the bride. Don’t think this...
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December 10, 2019
December 10, 2019
Indie retailers are being hunted online by Amazon, Zola, and brands using their direct to consumer sites. They are triangulating around their prey. These entries are picking off their online customers and thereby their ‘supply chains‘ that keep them afloat online. Without online sales, the indie stores are starved of the one area in which the retail industry is growing.
Amazon and brands target general public orders. Due to the lower prices, brand name, and marketing, they'll get those ...
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Market buildings are looking down the barrel of a gun. To find out why, check out my article in this month's Tableware Today.
THE LAST WORD
CHART YOUR FUTURE BEFORE BIG TECH DOES
by JASON SOLAREK
Market buildings are starting to take digital seriously. Why, finally? Because Amazon is nipping at retailers’ heels? No. Because Zola is stealing indie stores’ registry business? No. Sadly, the main thing that’s brought markets up to speed has to do with their own dollars and ...
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September 4, 2019
September 4, 2019
Help a business friend and we'll give you $50
How the program works: 1. Refer a retailer to Bridge. E-mail us the store’s name. We’ll do the rest of the work. E-mail: [email protected] 2. After the store is active 60 days, we'll send you a check for $50. :)
What the store receives: This reminded me: I'm happy to mail you $50 for referring a store.
For free, your stores can receive: 1. A Bridge account filled with professional product pictures and accurate prices. 2. Award-winning e-commerce and...
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I went into a small shop in New York City yesterday and admired all their nice tableware. It offered mugs, cups, plates, drinking glasses, and vases—all items that are great for gift registries.
The store was empty. I thought it may be a good time ask the store manager if the store offered an online registry. He replied "yes." I was surprised because there was no signage in the store that said it offered a gift registry. I shared with him what Bridge is and explained that we...
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What company in the tabletop industry has invested in a tech company? I don't know of one. I believe our industry should be doing what UPS does and investing in tech--and I'll explain why.
As today's WSJ shares, UPS has a venture capital arm and it has this because smart businesses know that most businesses are becoming more like: software businesses. Therefore, businesses have to ‘buy’ that know-how by investing in a tech company. UPS knows that it doesn't have the internal tech know-how to...
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June 26, 2019
June 26, 2019
I’m just back from the Dallas show. I met with some wonderful people from the mart and they’re ready to go digital.
In general, I’m seeing that more market buildings are finally taking digital seriously. Why are they finally doing so? Because Amazon is nipping at their retailers heels? Because Zola is stealing the indie store’s registry business? No. Sadly, the main thing that brought the markets up to speed on the weather outside is: their own livelihood. Faire, a startup tech company ...
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June 24, 2019
June 24, 2019
“If the shoe fits, wear it,” goes the old saying, and today’s Times shares the state of indie shoes which may sound familiar to indie gift shop owners. This story seems to be ‘a fit’ for our industry, too.
I recently visited a Footlocker and noticed they had moved the Nike shoes to the back of the store. Why? Nike, with all of its stores and direct to consumer website promotion, is now a competitor and Footlocker is trying to reduce its reliance on Nike. To that affect, I went to the Nike ...
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June 16, 2019
June 16, 2019
Business lunch: how retail is changing :)
Old retail is 80% analog. This consists of: the physical store, staff, customer service training, etc. What you’d expect walking into a Saks or Macy's. And it's about 20% tech: computers, cash registers (POS systems), mobile shopping, Google ranking, apps, hiring social influencers, Instagram, etc.
Today, the retailers that are well positioned, growing, and 'hot' carry the opposite equation: they're 20% analog and 80% tech.
Your software now better promotes free shipping and free gift wrapping. Next to each item, if applicable, it says "Free Delivery" and "Free Gift Wrapping."
This change keeps your store competitive with Zola and other retailers which are promoting free delivery.
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June 14, 2019
June 14, 2019
Zola is offering free shipping on all items. Are you offering free shipping on all items? If not, you're going to lose business to them. I advise you to offer free shipping and make less margin on the order vs lose the entire order to Zola.
In general, margins are smaller on online orders. This is well documented--and now accepted--as a business practice. Accept this fact and you'll survive and grow. Don't accept it and you'll lose orders and struggle online and likely fail.
Smaller margins are here for many businesses in many industries—not just tableware. Recently, a sales rep balked when I suggested its stores take a haircut on margins. Yet, I believe big money tech players are forcing these cuts and upending traditional profits—leaving stores with little other option. From media (see today’s AT&T article) to advertising (Facebook, goggle) to transportation (Uber, Lyft, Tesla) to gift registries (Amazon, MyRegistry, Zola), big money-backed tech companies are the...
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