As the new year is underway, there’s reason to be bullish (or, at least, not bearish) about what 2024 may have in store. Holiday retail sales increased 3.1% despite lingering inflation, thanks to robust job growth and strong wage gains, which came as a big relief for retailers. Price-conscious consumers are still spending, suggesting the economy is strong. “What we’re seeing this holiday season is very consistent with how we’re thinking about the economy, which is that it...
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The Atlantic shares how Chinese factories have found a new way around U.S. retailers and into our homes: Chinese apps. SHEIN and other Chinese apps are bypassing Amazon to be a new leader in Chinese goods. In addition to Amazon, Target, Walmart, and indie shops now have a new group of digital competitors embedded in customers’ pockets.
Except from The Atlantic article:
MATERIAL WORLD
IS THIS HOW AMAZON ENDS?
An open embrace of cheap foreign products has helped ...
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A recent study conducted by Jungle Scout reports that many consumers prefer to support small and local businesses for their holiday shopping. 20% reported they will buy holiday gifts from indie stores, up from 10% last year. The report ranks independent retailers in 4th place for in-store shopping, surpassing Costco, Walgreen's Best Buy, Sam's Club, Macy's and Home Depot.
The article shares 53% of consumers bought online from independent stores on Small Business Saturday as reported by ...
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According to a recent RetailDive report, online and mobile purchases for Black Friday sales were the strongest, with smartphone sales leading at 54% of online sales. The article states consumers spent a record $9.8 billion online on Black Friday, according to data from Adobe Analytics. That’s up 7.5% from last year.
Industry experts forecast that consumer spending will be up 2-3% year over year. The National Retail Federation projects 3-4% year over year. Consumers are cautious about ...
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This weekend’s WSJ shares that retail labor costs continue to rise and will likely contribute to more inflation. Stores either have to cut staff or raise prices—and higher prices result in lower revenue creating a downward cycle. Large players, like Amazon, have more robots and access to capital and may be better insulated from these rising costs. Yet, even Amazon had had to make some cuts, including its recent pause on completing its HQ2 campus in Virginia and its ...
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It’s a formidable task, overseeing product development for all of Lenox’s flatware brands, which includes Lenox, Kate Spade, Oneida, Cambridge, Hampton Forge, Reed & Barton, and Gorham. Your tenures at Oneida and Bed Bath & Beyond, as the tabletop buyer, provide a solid foundation for this position.
Prior to Oneida, where I was senior product marketing manager when Lenox acquired us, I was at Bed Bath & Beyond for 12 years, most recently as the tabletop buyer. My whole ...
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With our retail members in the throes of the holiday season, it was nice to read an article by Retail Dive providing some insight into Q4 2022. Retail Dive, a retail industry publication, informs readers that big-box stores share much of the same friction as our indie retailers do. I appreciated the acknowledgement that independent stores may feel disruptions quicker and may even have an edge on providing a more superior customer experience to gaining loyalty. The good news is that there are ...
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When we talk about prices, there are two prices that are important:
The price that we charge clients.
The price our clients charge their customers.
We normally talk about the former, aka how our prices compare with other competitors, like Shopify or wholesale services like Faire.
Of increasing importance to us is what our retailers charge their customers. Walmart recently announced that it was taking brands to account and pressuring them to keep ...
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When I was a kid, my mom instilled in me a lesson to always get paid for my work. When I went to mow a lawn or do my newspaper route, she’d remind me, “Be sure you get paid.” As an adult, these flashbacks are vivid like a scene from Citizen Kane—just swap out the Rosebud sled with my newspaper delivery bike. Today, this lesson still resonates when running Bridge. When calling a store that hasn’t paid its Bridge bill, I’m confident in asking ...
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When is the last time you received a Starbucks gift card? I’ve received them as holiday gifts, and I’ve given them to sales reps as thank you gifts. Starbucks gift cards, like their shops, are ubiquitous. They are almost as popular as gift cards from our nemesis: Amazon.com. Just about every month, a company offers me an Amazon gift card if I sign up for a service. WBGO, the local, Newark-based, non-profit radio station known for jazz, recently offered me an Amazon gift ...
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In the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, a motivational speaker played by Alec Baldwin addresses a group of salesmen. He writes three letters vertically on the chalkboard, “A B C.” He explains that the acronym means "Always Be Closing."
The way that Baldwin's character thinks about sales, I may think about reading. I think of: "ABR,” Always Be Reading. Whether it's breakfast, lunch, or dinner, I try to get in a page or two of the Times, Wall St. ...
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Today’s Wall St. Journal reports on the need by retailers to quickly update prices due to inflationary pressures. We agree: Bridge has been offering an instant price update service to retailers for their websites for 14 years. On a daily basis, our Product Syncing service helps Kate Spade, Baccarat, Le Creuset, and 100 premium brands update prices for 60,000 products on 930 stores’ websites.
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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The WSJ shares that Fiesta tableware has seen overwhelming demand during the pandemic. Growth is fueled by its U.S.-based production and families’ return to at-home dining.
Are you sipping whiskey this holiday season? If so, you may be paying more. It used to cost $.22 to ship a bottle of whiskey by sea. Now, distilleries are resorting to shipping it by air to get it to you in time for your Christmas party. Instead of $.22, airfreight is $4 per bottle. That may be cause for another sip.
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In the news each day, there are reports of price increases (inflation) that average 4%. When a product's price increases 4% or 45%, this often hurts a retailer. Reason: the retailer may not know about this price change till after it has sold the item. Therefore, the retailer sold the item at 45% less than what it should have. If the item is a special order and the retailer does not have it in stock, it may barley make a profit on the order.
Bridge's product sharing service helps ...
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The Wall St. Journal shares that prices are rising on many products and retailers are turning to software to help them cope.
Bridge helps more than 800 stores fight the downsides of inflation. Our Smart Products service allows brands to instantly raise prices for their products on a retailers' Bridge Store--thereby helping the retailer limit loses. In contrast, stores that do not use Bridge are much less likely to raise prices on time and therefore more likely to lose money on an order....
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