What Threads can teach us about leveraging our existing network when launching a new service.
July 22, 2023
Threads, a new Twitter-like service from Meta, the owner of Instagram, launched this month and almost immediately attracted 40m active daily users. The service’s growth has since stalled and now has just over 10m daily users, but that is still commendable. The Wall Street Journal shared that this impressive launch was largely possible because Meta used its built-in network of one billion Instagram users. This user base helped it overcome the “cold start” problem of acquiring ...
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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 ...
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How to access your built-in marketing tools via the Marketing Manager page.
July 12, 2023
Your Shop Local Store has a new feature: We've made it easier to view and manage your marketing tools. Your account includes several built-in tools and programs, which can now be quickly accessed through the new Marketing Manager page.
The Marketing Manager page displays the following promotions in a table:
Offer Free Shipping.
Display a "Thank you for shopping local" banner on the checkout pages.
Here at Shop Local, we’ve seen brands try to cut out indie stores. We’ve seen big-name companies close accounts in good standing and raise minimum annual purchase amounts in the toughest of times in order to cut out indie stores. Well, now some of these brands are back with hat in hand.
We are pleased to announce that Kalalou is ready to Sync products with authorized retailers. Syncing products is free for your business. There is no charge. (The brand pays for this service.)
Kalalou joins our stable of 110 premium brands that Sync products with 1,200+ fine indie stores.
View Kalalou's Synced products
View the 1,500+ products you can Sync from Kalalou here: kalalou.myshoplocal.com
View an example of a retailer's Store that is ...
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I have been writing a blog for my fellow independent retailers for many years now (there are over 750 entries so far). Jason has suggested that I add these Specialty Shop Retailing posts to my shop's Bridge feed every Monday, so I'm going to try to do that. In the meantime, I invite you to take a look at some of the past entries - and to watch for "Savvy Store Solutions," my bimonthly column in Gifts and Decorative Accessories magazine. I want us all to be successful!
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How businesses keep customers coming back after they make a purchase.
June 8, 2023
Six Flags is updating its theme parks to encourage families to spend more time there and visit more often, according to this past weekend’s The Wall St. Journal. The theme park's president, Jeffrey Siebert, says that the nightly fireworks show is what the industry calls a “kiss good night.” After park-goers have spent the day spending, they perceive the show as a free, post-purchase gift with no strings attached. The fireworks thereby help the customer leave fulfilled and...
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How we can acquire new prospects by leveraging our existing network of customers.
June 2, 2023
In Andrew Chen’s book The Cold Start Problem, he breaks the network effect into three parts: engagement, acquisition, and economize. At Shop Local, we rely on the network effect and its three parts. I feel that we’re succeeding in terms of engagement but need improvement in acquisition.
Engagement
We use the 64,000 products in our Syncing service to engage 1,200 our retail clients. We email them new intros, price updates, archived items for these synced products. Once they ...
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It was October 2021, and I had just finished my first in-person trends seminar since the pandemic impacted all industry shows. At the end of the image-packed program, an audience member raised her hand and challenged, “Do trends even matter anymore?”
It was a valid question. The pandemic had disrupted business, upended supply chains, transformed education, revealed vulnerabilities, altered priorities, and unexpectedly claimed many lives. The question was tinged with cynicism. Pent...
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Susan Gravely – alongside her sister, Frances, and mother, Lee – founded VIETRI 40 years ago after a serendipitous vacation where they discovered the charms of Italian ceramics. Gravely’s new book, Italy on a Plate, equal parts travelogue/cookbook/memoir, is a culinary delight celebrating four decades of bringing the best of Italy’s tableware to an adoring fan base.
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You and I go back almost to the start of VIETRI in 1983. [Editor&rsquo...
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What Crocs can teach us about gaining new customers and keeping them happy.
May 15, 2023
About 15 years ago, I bought a pair of Crocs sandals in Myrtle Beach, SC. Not only were they hot pink, but the insole was traffic cone orange. My buddies hated them, but oddly others loved them. The sandals were affordable (maybe $20), comfortable, and a conversation starter.
According to last week’s The New York Times' profile on Crocs, I’m one of tens of millions of happy Crocs owners. This happiness is profitable:
HEREND HAS BEEN KNOWN FOR ITS BRILLIANT WHITE PORCELAIN SINCE 1826. ON THE EVE OF THE HUNGARIAN MANUFACTORY’S 200TH ANNIVERSARY (YES, WE’RE A TAD EARLY), WE SALUTE HEREND’S GOLD AND WHITE DINNERWARE DESIGNS, IDEAL EXEMPLARS OF CLASSIC ELEGANCE.
HEREND IS KNOWN AROUND THE GLOBE AS ONE OF PORCELAIN’S finest producers, a favorite of royalty, aristocracy, and folks like you and me who appreciate unparalleled quality and exquisite craftsmanship. Herend’s smooth white ...
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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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I'm giving you a $200 finder's fee when you refer a store.
When you refer a store, the store will receive $268. It will receive $100 towards a wholesale order with your brand and a $168 credit towards their registry service with us. (My company is paying the $100 wholesale order credit.)
This offer is good through May 1, 2023.
Summary: you give a store $268 and you get $200. (Bridge ...
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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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How we can bring clients together to build a larger network.
February 4, 2023
Economist Bent Flyvbjerg encourages us to find our “Lego” in his new book “How Big Things Get Done.” Mr. Flyvbjerg, whose new book is reviewed by Ben Cohen in this week’s The Wall Street Journal, says that most large projects that are completed successfully use a modular approach. Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal:
“That’s the question every project leader should ask: What is the small thing we can assemble in large numbers into a big ...
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How integrating a messaging service into our e-commerce platform can help us acquire new customers.
January 31, 2023
It takes a lot of people to build a bridge, but just two to tango. This applies to the analog world as well as the digital one. In the digital space, I'm using tango to refer to messaging between two people. I believe messaging is a service we can add to our offering to diversify how our company Shop Local grows.
Different Networks Require a Different Number of Users in a Group
Andrew Chen in The Cold Start Problem states that a key difference among network models is the required minimum ...
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How having the right defaults makes decisions easier for clients and helps them be more successful.
January 27, 2023
When you look at your driver’s license, it lists if you’re an organ donor. Twenty years ago, only 20% of people were donors, but today 80% are—thereby saving millions of lives. Did people become more kind? No, the question on the application was changed from opt-in to opt-out. People signing up for or renewing a license are now by default enlisted in organ donation. Lesson: the right default answer in medical care can save millions of lives. Similarly, the right defaults ...
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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.)