How Amazon privatizes public spaces for its own profit
February 14, 2024
This is a daily sight on 8th St. in the East Village of New York City, a spot historically chockablock with indie, brick-and-mortar shops. This is an Amazon truck and freelancers who have taken over the street (it’s a no standing zone) and sidewalk as their own. This is one way Amazon sells things for less: it turns public streets and sidewalks into its “warehouses” and “stores.” Imagine you’re a local business with a roof and rent. You can’t compete ...
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Amazon and third-party delivery services have setup a “warehouse” outside the Astor Place USPS office. This is not a truck parking for five minutes. This a day-long, everyday occurrence. I’ve seen this same scene on a daily basis all around the city for the last three years.
This hurts local retailers. While the local businesses pay extra taxes to operate a store in southern Manhattan, it costs Amazon much less to park a delivery truck (permanently?), put ...
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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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I was at the East Village restaurant Evil Katsu tonight and spotted this clever promotion. I think gift shops should have a sign like this, too, and offer free gift wrapping if the customer leaves a review.
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I spotted this “Say Yes to Local” sign at my local, East Village grocery store. My neighborhood has been inundated with venture capital-backed online grocery delivery services. These services hurt local stores like this one.
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I discovered a page on Amazon’s site proclaiming that Amazon supports small businesses. That is news to me and many small businesses which have been attacked by Amazon, its deep pockets, and its army of millions of delivery people and thousands of warehouses. Amazon’s page says it helps small businesses, which it defines as having under 100 employees and less than $49 million in sales. (It says it uses Gartner’s definition.)
An East Village Artist’s Death Prompts a Reflection on the State of Indie Retailers Today
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While thumbing through the Times, I noticed a smiling young woman’s picture in the obituaries. In the black and white photograph, she's standing on a fire escape with a historic building and a bridge in the distance. I was initially attracted to Ronni Solbert’s 1959 picture, yet I was even more drawn in by what I noticed next to her photo: a children&...
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In Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0, which the Bridge team is currently reading, the author Jim Collins confesses that he missed a key ingredient 25 years ago when he wrote the first edition. He states that he now realizes the most important part of achieving a great company is: getting the right people 'on the bus.’ I agree. Fourteen and a half years ago (long before I opened this book), I was lucky enough to pick up the right ‘passenger:' Moshe replied to my job posting (...
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A new trend in retail is vacant shops in urban neighborhoods being converted to small warehouses. In the East Village on 10th Street, we see on the left the new warehouse model; on the right we see a traditional retailer. For the ‘store’ on the left, the customer orders via their mobile phone and then does a pickup or gets a delivery.
I’m seeing more of these ‘zombie stores’ around the city. Just in the East Village, I’ve seen four: ...
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Last night, I was at a speakeasy bar and spotted what I believe to be a MacKenzie -Childs item. To enter the bar, you pass through a soda vending machine that opens up.
Nice to see Smart Brand member MacKenzie-Childs contributing to the decor next to a neon sign.
If you have the chance, check out the Garrett on Avenue A. Stop by the soda machine :)
MEMBERSHIP SURGES 50% IN E-COMMERCE COMMUNITY Online Shopping Boom Drives Retail Industry to Team Up On Bridge
NEW YORK, NY, July 30, 2021 – Bridge, an e-commerce community, reported a record increase in membership as the pandemic continued to rattle the retail landscape. In the last 12 months, 275 retail stores joined Bridge, bringing the total membership to more than 826 stores—a 50% increase. ...
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Jim Power, the legendary East Village mosaic artist, is profiled in the blog Bedford & Bowery. We share with Jim a passion to make local neighborhoods vibrant. Bridge commissioned Jim to create four mosaics for Bridge. Whereas Jim uses pieces of tile, marbles, and broken plates, Bridge's 'mosaics' are computer pixels. Regardless of the material, we both seek to help indie stores thrive. A vibrant community is a mosaic of indie businesses, artists, and organizations. The mosaics ...
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This East Village sign reminded of Bridge: Bridge members are taking on big sharks. Let's go fishing!
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July 26, 2019
July 26, 2019
Irony: old analog retail is literally being replaced by new tech. Today’s WSJ shares that retail space that used to belong to Lord & Taylor’s midtown flagship may become Amazon’s NYC office space. In the East Village, Facebook’s HQ recently took over Kmart’s entire third floor, shrinking Kmart from three floors to just two. That’s a 33% contraction, which mirrors the contraction of physical retail and the growth of digital platforms like Amazon and Facebook. Note: Lord & Taylor, Kmart, and many ...
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Good morning, indie shops. A special thanks to local mosaic artist Jim Power for creating this tribute to East Village businesses—and happy to see Bridge featured in it.
Also in this art piece are: McSorleys, Immigrant, Dinosaur Hill, and The Bean.
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