I saw this Instagram post from official Mark Levine and thought, “How much are the Amazon lobbyists paying our officials?” NYC continually over taxes our indie businesses and fines them—but we’ll build six marinas for Amazon? (Mark said three marinas, but it’s actually six marinas.) The main culprits behind this: Mayor Adams and the Economic Development Corporation (EDC). Amazon is one of the richest companies in the world. Jeff Bezos, the founder,...
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My colleague Josh shared this poem with us. I like the parable about doing things for others. At Bridge, we support the poem’s view by building a platform that helps growing indie businesses. We build solutions for problems (“chasms”) that existing customers have knowing that future businesses that join us (“the youth”) will benefit from these digital bridges. To our team: Thank you, Bridge Builders.
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 special thanks to the tableware brand Carmel Ceramica for including our logo in its new 2023 product catalog. Bridge grows best via word-of-mouth and collaboration. Partners like Carmel Ceramica help us reach more indie businesses. Thank you.
PS ~ Nice to see pictures of owner Elece Leverone and National Sales Manager Neil Peters.
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Last week, we talked about the power of advertising and how Dietrich Mateschitz, the co-founder of Red Bull, wielded it by sponsoring Mini Coopers, fringe sporting events, and Formula 1 races. Advertising makes a statement and helps people change their minds—specifically to make a purchase. There are people who do similar things in order to change society. We often call them activists. Activists and advertisers possess a similar skill set. In 1950, Ian Hamilton stole a stone slap ...
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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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I met Georgi, who runs this mobile sewing shop, while walking down the Bowery yesterday. I shared with her the story of Ronni Solbert, a neighbor who illustrated a childrens book about peddlers like her, and praised her for being an indie business—with a creative delivery approach. Georgi said her cart had previously been a coffee cart and was repurposed during the pandemic when people wanted to get their clothes hemmed in airy locals.
Read our post about pushcart peddlers ...
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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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When I flew home yesterday from Charleston, while most people were seeking relief from their sunburns and reminiscing about their vacations, I was delving into The Wall St. Journal’s profile on Tracy Britt Cool, an ex- Berkshire Hathaway star. Mrs. Cool’s new company Kanbrick invests in businesses with $10m - $50m in revenue. What does Mrs. Cool look for when investing in a company? People and moats.
At Bridge, we’re reading Jim Collins’ Beyond ...
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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 ...
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Scott Galloway, a business leader and NYU professor, shares that we're now spending over 4 hours a day on our mobile phones--up from just 20 minutes in 2010. (…I wrote part of this post on my iPhone.) What does this mean? Lots of opportunities for Amazon--as well as Facebook, Instagram, and other tech titans--to sell to us. Our cell phones are, in essence, 1,000 'buy buttons' in our pockets (or on our nightstands) that encourage us to buy stuff online, any time of the day.
Jim Collins, in his book BE 2.0, explains how purpose and mission are important to companies. To help explain this, he uses the metaphor of crossing a mountain range and seeing a star on the horizon. Your purpose is to reach the spot on the horizon below the star. The current mission is climbing up the mountain you’re on. The next mission is climbing up the next mountain and so forth in order to get closer to the spot on the horizon. You will have many missions, and may never ...
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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’m seeing a disturbing trend online. Stores are not sharing news and events on their websites. Instead, they are relying on Facebook (and Instagram, which it also owns) to perform this task. That’s like a customer coming into the physical store and the store manager saying: "Want our news and events? We don’t have it here. Go to the coffee shop next door—which will be filled with our competitors pitching to you."
Business leader Scott Galloway said this past week on his podcast Pivot that "complexity is a tax on the poor." I'd expand on that and posit that: complexity is a tax on indie businesses.
What if indie businesses could reduce the complexity and costs of running an online business? I believe we can. Bridge is reducing the costs of running an online business for more than a thousand businesses.
How do we reduce the 'tax'? Bridge often helps a retailer set up an online store ...
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I’d like to see publications across the country running stories like this.
Ps-The Times has a weekly shopping section in which it lists five products. Often the majority of items shown have a link suggesting the reader purchase the item at amazon.com. I’d like to see the Times update its reporting in this weekly article to suggest buying from indie stores.
Amazon Prime, Grindr, and Instagram do not seem to have much in common with each other. But, a recent study by PCloud found that these apps are some of the biggest 'data burglars': they are downloading our data at an alarming rate.
Many brands and retailers in our industry promote Facebook, yet Facebook and its sister company Instagram are the leading thieves of personal data. It’s akin to them suggesting their friend sit next to a digital pick pocket.
Most e-commerce software promotes ‘me’ commerce. It does not connect businesses with each other to leverage the power of the group. Businesses act alone and are lost in a maze of decisions. Massive amounts of time and money are wasted. Amazon loves when indie businesses endure this waste.
Bridge promotes ‘we‘ commerce. Our social e-commerce platform connects 700 retailers with 2,700 brands. Of these brands, 113 are Smart Brand partners that share 65,...
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I noticed this ad for Big Ass Fans and was struck by the word “destroyer.” That’s a strong, powerful, memorable word. I wondered what wording we’d use if we were to run a full-page ad.
Large, well-funded entities are constantly seeking to swipe indie business—that’s aggression. We’re giving indies figurative swords, shields, and helmets to fight back.
Our full-page ad may state: “We Arm the Indies With Digital Weapons.&...
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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 ...
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