21 ways Gift Reggie is making it difficult for gift givers, registrants, and merchants
April 3, 2024
Our registry service handles 80,000 gift and wedding registries. We often come across other registry software and can see how it's affecting the merchant that is using it.
While eating breakfast and browsing the web via my phone, I recently came across RFD, a merchant in Albany, NY, that uses Gift Reggie (an app that is added to a Shopify Store).
I observed 21 problems while reviewing the merchant's registry service. I initially wrote the issues down on a paper tablecloth...
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Jim Shreve made Baccarat hip. Now, he and his longtime partner, Mark Brashear, along with Sally Burnside, the former Baccarat sales V.P., intend to do the same for DeVine Corp., the 32-year-old distributor of elite European brands. You're invited to the opening!
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Congrats to you all. This is very exciting. Tim, we’ve known each other since before you started DeVine Corp., 32 years ago. You’ve been looking for the right opportunity to retire. TIM ...
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RetailDive reports Target is offering new loyalty programs to better compete against Amazon Prime and Walmart+ services.
Excerpt:
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Target on April 7 plans to debut Target Circle 360, a paid membership program that builds on its Target Circle loyalty program, the company announced Tuesday. The new program will offer unlimited free same-day delivery for orders $35 and up, along with free two-day shipping, rivaling similar offerings from Walmart and Amazon.
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A recent study conducted by Jungle Scout reports that many consumers prefer to support small and local businesses for their holiday shopping. 20% reported they will buy holiday gifts from indie stores, up from 10% last year. The report ranks independent retailers in 4th place for in-store shopping, surpassing Costco, Walgreen's Best Buy, Sam's Club, Macy's and Home Depot.
The article shares 53% of consumers bought online from independent stores on Small Business Saturday as reported by ...
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According to a recent RetailDive report, online and mobile purchases for Black Friday sales were the strongest, with smartphone sales leading at 54% of online sales. The article states consumers spent a record $9.8 billion online on Black Friday, according to data from Adobe Analytics. That’s up 7.5% from last year.
Industry experts forecast that consumer spending will be up 2-3% year over year. The National Retail Federation projects 3-4% year over year. Consumers are cautious about ...
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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 technology hurts the entertainment industry just like Amazon hurts the retail industry.
August 1, 2023
Over the last three decades, Hollywood and many that rely on the entertainment industry have embraced ordering goods over Amazon.com. Recap: Amazon is a technology company that often cuts costs by replacing humans with code and robots and bypasses local red tape like, um, taxes and labor rules. Hollywood writers, producers, and ticket goers embraced a technology company that made their lives easier but often at the cost of others (aka retail workers).
Your registry service has built in email campaigns for each gift registry list. These campaigns promote your store in an automated and affordable manner. The campaigns often cost under $.0.42 per recipient—about half of what other email marketing campaigns cost.
Details
Your software sends out an anniversary reminder email to a customer that gave a gift for that registry.
Cost Per Email Sent
Let’s assume that a registry received 100 purchases. ...
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With bold hands, porcelain is crafted between vision and heritage. Everyday art meets everyday life with Jake Gyllenhaal, official talent of Oriente Italiano's new campaign.
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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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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-...
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"A 2021 Harris Poll Consumer Shopping Study showed that 71% of Americans would prefer to buy from an independent retailer over a national chain, as long as they were equally convenient and reliable."
~ SpotOn
I believe these survey results. Shoppers want to shop local, but they don't want to sacrifice selection, price, or speed. Consumers will shop with your indie store if you can offer the same selection, price, and delivery speed as, say, Amazon. Is ...
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While buying a beer this past weekend in Philadelphia, I spotted this cool beer can with a ‘Back to the Future’ themed design. I was happy to see on the can, which is brewed by Three 3’s Brewery, a “Drink Local” campaign. Supporting local businesses, whether they are breweries or gift shops, is a mission dear to us.
In the early 2000s, the board game Cranium became a hit. The game combined elements of Scrabble and Pictionary with the goal of helping more people enjoy playing a game. Richard Tait, who created Cranium and sold it to Hasbro in 2008 for $77.5m, passed away in July. Like Mr. Tait, I had been a paperboy, but he went beyond what I ever offered: he came up with a new service that sold breakfast sandwiches along his newspaper route. He increased profits and made customers happier. ...
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The next book our Bridge team may read is John List’s book The Voltage Effect. List, who is a behavioral economist at the University of Chicago, shares a variety of suggestions to grow a business. He warns us about false positives, such as what the “Just Say No” drug campaign experienced. He suggests we look for businesses with scalable ingredients. (People are not scalable, but good news for Bridge: software is!)
I'd add to List's advice this simple maxim: show ...
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My friend works at the Swiss running shoemaker ON. She recently texted me and suggested I try their running shoes. Three weeks later, I was handling two boxes of their Swiss engineered shoes. On one ON shoe, there is a little Swiss flag and the words “Swiss Engineering” printed. When I get a pair of Nike’s, they don’t say "Beaverton-engineering" or "US-engineering." Nor do Adidas shoes proclaim “German engineering.” ...
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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 ...
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George Lois, the famous advertising maven, writes in Damn Good Advice that he doesn’t create an advertising campaign as much as he discovers one. He pulls it out of the air and captures it. He shares that Michelangelo said that a sculpture is imprisoned in a block of marble, and only a great sculpture can free it.
I view Bridge in a similar way. We’re not creating the software—we’re discovering it. Our methods for operating an online store were bound to...
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