Last February e-commerce company Shopify Inc. replaced the “Ottawa, Canada” dateline that began its press releases and earnings reports with a strange new one: “Internet, Everywhere.” The geographical shift came at the insistence of Shopify’s founder and chief executive officer, Tobi Lütke, who tends to view such matters through the prism of cold, hard logic. In May 2020, only a few months into the pandemic, he’d made the early, seemingly rash decision to...
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This cool graphic of a receipt shows the impact of shopping small. AmEx’s shop small campaign, which overlaps with the shop local movement, encourages customers to shop at local, mom-and-pop businesses. Shopping at indie businesses allows customers to get items quickly and discover new finds.
We support the shop local movement and the AmEx shop small campaign. Bridge helps this movement by filling the websites of America’s best indie shops with thousands of products, ...
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I spotted this board game 'Anti-Monopoly' at a garage sale. The character on the front has an uncanny resemblance to Jeff Bezos, head of Amazon which many people consider to be a monopoly in a few sectors from online shopping to cloud-based computing.
Offering products that make people smile is a winning strategy. RetailDive shares that leading shoe brands Vans and Adidas are running with this strategy. Adidas recently offered Lego and Meissen shoes, and Vans offers shoes inspired by local businesses from across the country.
The sales of these shoes can be minimal, yet the effort is a marketing gold because its gets free press mentions and this helps the brand's halo.
Vans' Zabars shoes are part of a larger Vans campaign that ...
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Today’s WSJ shares that independent stores, including hardware stores, book shops, and pharmacies, have teamed up to stop Amazon’s bad practices. The group, called Small Business Rising, seeks to use anti-trust laws to prevent Amazon marketplace from selling its own goods—which compete with retailers using the platform. Amazon has been shown to use a retailer’s customer and sales data and bypass the retailer (it’s own customer) in order to make a bigger profit. ...
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Online advertising is great for brands. It's bad for: indie stores.
Why? Before the Internet, there were few ways for brands to cut out stores. They may have an annual warehouse sale, but that was about it. Today, a customer visits a retailer website and looks at brand X. Or it visits brand X's site to do some research. The issue for indie stores: thanks to online advertising, now I'm being marketed to across the web. I'm reading news on the New York Post website and being encouraged to...
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A customer emailed one of our client's this morning. The customer sent the email to praise the store's marketing effort. That marketing effort was designed and is managed by: Bridge. It required no effort by the store.
How the marketing works:
A customer buys a registry gift for a couple.
Approximately a year later, the Bridge software emails the customer on the couple's wedding anniversary. The email reminds the customers that it is the couple's anniversary.  
Busch beer is having a bit of fun with the havoc Covid is wrecking. Busch's contest:
Busch is picking 250 winners to share how they are dealing with their canceled weddings.
Affected couples need to post a photo of themselves to Instagram or Twitter with an explanation of how they plan to celebrate given the circumstances, and use the hashtags #BuschWeddingGift and #Sweepstakes.
Gartner shared this advice for managing your company's marketing efforts:
Strategy for the partner marketing program, and how it aligns with the overall brand marketing strategy.
Funding and talent resources dedicated to driving and administering partner marketing relationships.
Campaign modes, or the balance of approaches to partner marketing. “To” campaigns provide information about a brand’s product and service for partners to use internally. &ldquo
How can you prepare for Black Friday / Cyber Monday? Here's a checklist:
1. 'Seed the sale' by telling customers to expect deals. "Promote sales, promote sales, promote sales," said Sucharita Kodali, principal analyst of e-business and channel strategy at Forrester. "It's the number one thing that shoppers look for during the holidays." (Source: Retail Dive)
You can do this via posts on Bridge and social media.
2. Craft an irresistible offer.
3. Organize your upcoming sales / discounts. You can do ...
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June 27, 2019
June 27, 2019
"Customer service, willingness to evolve, introduction of new business technologies, community involvement and customer loyalty are factors that determined the list of 55 award recipients nationwide..." Last month, our 67-year-old shop was selected as a 2019 Retail Star by Home Accents Today. A special thanks to our customers and local community for helping us achieve such an award (for the fourth time!)
“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 5, 2019
June 5, 2019
Southerners Share Their Secrets For a Lasting Marriage.
If you're new to gift registries, you're in for a fun experience! Rickey Heroman's offers an online Bridal and Gift Registry so you can choose from the thousands of gifts we offer on our website to create the ultimate wish list.
The Summit County Astronomy Club is selling 200 $20.00 raffle tickets to fund the last handicap accessible telescope station. This will finish our capital campaign. The necklace and matching earrings are 18 iKt white gold with a border of natural black diamonds. The total diamond weight is .32 carats. The SCAC is a 591 C 3 tax exempt corporation. All our programs are free and open to the public. 200% of proceeds go to this project. Call 330-836-8477 for more information
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March 21, 2018
March 21, 2018
Wish to share the Week of Waterford sale with your brides? Bridge is helping you.
Bridge is emailing your brides an email that looks like the one attached. Your brides will learn about the sale and can shop online. Waterford is lowering the price for your customers as well as you (the retailer).
Please note: If you wish to not participate in this email campaign, you'll want to update your settings so that you designate that you don't want to show sale prices for Waterford.