We're excited to celebrate Millie Tucker in Edmond, OK, for proudly sharing their Shop Local Leaderboard success across Facebook and Instagram! 🎉

They highlighted their Top Wedding Registry Retail Mover – October 2025 recognition, showcasing both their ranking and a stunning in-store display. What a fantastic way to spotlight their registry program and inspire registrants.

🎯Why Post?

When retailers share their Leaderboard success, it creates powerful momentum:

• Builds trust with couples — They view

READ THE FULL HFN STORY HERE - Editor in Cheif Allison Zisko interviews Chief Executive Mike Raybould on U.S. retail growth and strategic focus on independent retailers.

Portmeirion Group, Spode's parent company, has pledged to bring as much tableware production back to the U.K. as possible. “I’m on a mission to come back to our heritage and roots,” group CEO Mike Raybould told HFN in a telephone interview. Spode’s skilled workforce — its décor is still hand-applied and nearly 25 people touch

FOR BRANDS & DISTRIBUTORS

Your Shop Local Store has a new feature: You can download a new flyer for your brand. This can be sent to retailers via email, shared on social media, or displayed in your showroom—just in time for the Atlanta Market. 

Your flyer is automatically pre-populated with your brand name. Shop Local URL, number of Synced products, and number of Synced retailers. This makes selling your products easier and faster.

In this example, we see Juliska’s flyer. It shows the

Good news: Shop Local is hiring. We're looking for:

• Sales Managers.
• Account Managers.

If you know someone who may be interested, please contact us.
 
We are experiencing notable growth: 1,400+ retailers now use our platform. We're driving double-digit revenue growth for our merchants.
 
Qualifications
We are looking for motivated people that:

• Wish to see indie stores, brands, and reps succeed.
• Support the shop local movement.
• Are comfortable with computers, websites, and social media.
• Are

Since I don't drive to work and listen to the radio or watch broadcast TV, I'm in a bit of a bubble when it comes to fast-food marketing. Thankfully, The Wall St. Journal helps me keep a pulse on America.  What caught my eye today was the Journal's article about Chili's, inflation, and its value offering. I was surprised to read that the cost of a fast-food burger meal has risen 62% in the last six years (2019: $7.50 -> 2025: $12).  Chili's is using the inflationary news to promote

Ben Cohen in The Wall St. Journal shares how Home Deport invests in improving plants to improve its sales. When customers are happier gardeners, they’ll buy more.  

I view our job here at Shop Local in a similar fashion:   When we nurture a better wedding registry process for indie retailers, they’ll sell more—and we’ll sell more.  We’ll keep their business and we’ll grow our client base. 

While Home Depot employees a team of horticulturalists, we employ coders and coaches to

One of the earliest documented examples of brands collaborating successfully is the partnership between fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli and surrealist artist Salvador Dalí in the 1930s, when they created iconic pieces like the Lobster Dress, blending art and fashion in a groundbreaking way. Brand collaborations are nothing new. Today, we regularly see collaborations between brands, artists, and celebrities.

Within the same sector, brands once seen as competitive become colleagues with mergers

Growth, Balance, Fortune

What does the color mean to you?

In a recent Tableware Today article, I implored retailers to 'build their robot.' I encouraged them to invest in technology to automate their processes. I told them how larger retailers like Amazon and Walmart are spending heavily on technology, and that is the best spot to get long-term ROI. Yet, there is another area that indie stores can target to boost profit, and it requires less time and money than spending on technology. 
 

Low Prices > Pretty Website

We've recently discovered

Your Shop Local Store has a new feature: You can now see key statistics for your business in 2024 on the new Success Summary page.

What statistics are shared?
For retailers, the 2024 Success Summary page shares:

• Online retail sales
• Retail sales ranking among all online retailers
• Number of shopping bags created
• Number of retail orders received
• Average online retail order amount
• Number of new customers gained
• Top online spending customer
• Day with the most online sales
• Most popular brand sold
• Most popular

The Wall St. Journal recently shared how Skechers has become a major shoe player by marching to its own drumbeat. 

Started in 1992, Skechers is the third largest seller of shoes in the world. But the company's history goes back even further: the founder's first company, LA Gear, which flamed out, was started in the 1980s.

Skechers grew by focusing on comfy and affordable shoes and didn't sign expensive promotion deals with active athletes. (It does partner with ex-athletes like Howie Long.)&

I predict that 70% of wedding gifts will be given online by 2030. (Already, 50% of wedding gifts are given online today.) I call this future online growth the 'wedding registry wave,' and my company's mission is to help indie stores capture this wave. 

Specifically, our company helps indie merchants up their online game by improving their website operations. We're giving them e-commerce and wedding registry software that is modern, easy to use, and pre-populated with gifts from leading