Shop Local & Bridge News Search Results for "ethos": 17 results

17 Results:

October 22, 2025 Measure Us by Feats ~ Not Square Feet

📏 Measuring indie businesses by what they accomplish vs. their size

Measure Us by Feats ~ Not Square Feet

📏 Measuring indie businesses by what they accomplish vs. their size

October 22, 2025

I read about a WNBA t-shirt and it inspired this concept for our industry:

Small Business

Measure Us by Feats

Not Square Feet

This t-shirt design reminds me of our Bridge ethos poster. A few year ago, we made a poster with crossed out words.

October 10, 2024 Josephinenhütte

Josephinenhütte

October 10, 2024

It speaks volumes that the first line acquired by Maison3Amis after the purchase of DeVine Corp., a three-decade distributor of luxe European tableware, was Josephinenhütte, the five-year-old German-based maker of lightweight, thin-walled stemware and accessories. The Maison3Amis team (hereafter known as M3A) is helmed by two one-time Baccarat execs, Jim Shreve and Sally Burnside, who appreciate a nonpareil drinking glass, and Mark Brashear, who quickly recognized the allure of the brand. &...
Read More

August 30, 2024 Necessity is the Mother of Reinvention

Necessity is the Mother of Reinvention

August 30, 2024

Ancient Greek philosopher Plato wrote in the Dialogue Republic, “A need or problem encourages creative efforts to meet the need or solve the problem.” This statement led to the phrase “Necessity is the mother of Invention." These words could very well describe Shop Local and how we came to exist. Over time, some have suggested the phrase could be tweaked to read “necessity is the mother of reinvention." This phrase also parallels Shop Local's ethos of supporting...
Read More

May 29, 2024 THE POWER OF BRAND BUILDING by KAREN OLSON

THE POWER OF BRAND BUILDING by KAREN OLSON

May 29, 2024

Brand strategy is one of the most powerful initiatives an organization can undergo. It’s an opportunity to evolve a company’s mission and value proposition based on current and future customer needs with the result being a purpose-led, customer-centric road map to create enhanced value for customers. ANDMORE recently completed this process as we rebranded from International Market Centers (IMC) last year. ANDMORE is more than just a new name and logo, it’s a framework for how ...
Read More

March 27, 2024 Tableware Today Interview - Jim Shreve, Tim DeVine, Mark Brashear, & Sally Burnside

Tableware Today Interview - Jim Shreve, Tim DeVine, Mark Brashear, & Sally Burnside

March 27, 2024

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!
................................

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 ...
Read More

July 25, 2023 This and That

This and That

July 25, 2023

I have a stack of virtual news clippings that either struck my fancy, taught me something new, or just made me shake my head in bemusement. On their own, they may not be enough for me to make a point, but together they have a thought-provoking synergy (and I'm sure I'll figure out what that is by the end of this column).

Our industry has been negatively affected by the loss of American manufacturing after we entered a long stretch of automation and outsourcing in the late 1970s; every ...
Read More

July 18, 2023 To Kill a Mockingbird

How a company's sales and growth can be affected by the message it conveys to customers.

To Kill a Mockingbird

How a company's sales and growth can be affected by the message it conveys to customers.

July 18, 2023

Allbirds stock is down 95% since its November 2021 initial public offering. People may say the company launched the wrong products (did you buy one of their puffer jackets?) or tried to grow too quickly. I believe there is a larger reason: you can’t scale a company by leading with an environmental message—which is Allbirds’s pitch. Consumers rank saving the planet as one of their least pressing concerns when making a purchase. The leading factors consumers look for when ...
Read More

March 22, 2022 Hospitality 🍽

Hospitality 🍽

March 22, 2022

Jeff Lawson, CEO of Twilio, a software company valued at $28 billion, was recently interviewed in the Wall St. Journal. When he shared who his advisors are, I was surprised to see Danny Meyer, the restaurant kingpin who owns Shake Shack (another publicly-traded company). Mr. Lawson read Mr. Meyer’s book “Setting the Table” and was impressed to learn about the difference between service and hospitality. Service is the delivery of the technical aspects of ...
Read More

March 11, 2022 This book shares how important: your store is

This book shares how important: your store is

March 11, 2022

At my local postal shop, which doubles as a surprise book purveyor and emergency greeting card supplier, I picked up this guide by Monocle, a magazine and book publisher, about indie shops. The book, ‘The Monocle Guide to Shops, Kiosks, and Markets,’ has an appreciation for brick-and-mortar retail that mirrors our ethos here at Bridge. Local shops bring people together and support communities unlike online-only marketplaces. We encourage citizens to ‘unplug’ and browse ...
Read More

March 6, 2022 Our Digital Gym 🏋️‍♀️

Our Digital Gym 🏋️‍♀️

March 6, 2022

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...
Read More

January 10, 2022 Windows to the Soul

Windows to the Soul

January 10, 2022

While I was down in Dallas evangelizing about Bridge, the Dallas Market Center’s software provider and sister company (called MarketTime) invited me to their offices for a meeting. The goal of the meeting was to explore teaming up to help brands and retailers speed products to market, as well as get a leg up on the competition.

The Dallas Mart consists of two primary buildings, each with atriums and many floors each. I like the Dallas show because of the abundance of ...
Read More

July 8, 2021 "Behind Every Great Business, There’s a Community"

"Behind Every Great Business, There’s a Community"

July 8, 2021

The message in this advertisement by the Professional Photographers of America association reminded me of Bridge’s ethos. PPA, we agree :) View Post

December 6, 2020 NYT: Shopify vs Amazon

NYT: Shopify vs Amazon

December 6, 2020

Yiren Lu shares her experience of setting up a Shopify store in the New York Times magazine. Ms. Lu reports the setup process was easy, but her online Shopify store failed because it lacked marketing, aka eyeballs and orders. In her next article, I hope Ms. Lu tries Bridge. Bridge Store helps members fill the marketing component that Shopify is missing. When a store joins Bridge, Bridge instantly points hundreds of links to the store from other Bridge members, which Google sees and ...
Read More

April 2, 2020 COVID-19 Update: What Bridge Is Doing to Help Members and Indie Businesses

COVID-19 Update: What Bridge Is Doing to Help Members and Indie Businesses

April 2, 2020

I believe that no business will survive the COVID-19 pandemic alone. Together, we can help indie stores survive this crisis.

Here is what Bridge is doing to help members:

Bridge is hosting COVID-19 preparation webinars for retailers, brands, and sales reps. For retailers, we hosted three trainings this week. You are invited to watch a replay of the COVID webinar for retailers here: https://vimeo.com/402693440/844cc20eec Our webinar

January 19, 2020 Thank You Vietri & Members

Thank You Vietri & Members

January 19, 2020

A special thanks to Vietri’s Hali Vradelis and and Adam Sigel for hosting Bridge. We shared 10 steps for stores to boost their gift registry sales by 14%.

Shown above: Jason Solarek and Shop of Provence store owners in front of the Bridge ethos poster.

Read the ethos poster:
https://www.shoplocal.org/news.cfm?id=18455 View Post

July 12, 2019 Bridge's Ethos

Our statement sharing the obstacles many indie retailers face and our mission to remove these obstacles.

Bridge's Ethos

Our statement sharing the obstacles many indie retailers face and our mission to remove these obstacles.

July 12, 2019

What if we could remove all the no’s and can’ts? I think we can :)

See you at tonight’s seminar to share how.

First read:
There are millions of indie stores in the world who don’t get to succeed online. They get ripped off by web designers and coders, pay more in local taxes than big tech companies, don’t have access to cheap money from Wall St. (like big tech companies), and can’t protect themselves from hackers looking to steal credit cards. They are prevented them from running their business,

July 2, 2019 Bridge Ethos Poster