Thank you to Lara Fenton for sharing her experience after buying a gift from Babcock Gifts, a merchant using Shop Local software for their e-commerce and registry services: 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“Such professional and easy service! It took me a total of 3 minutes to purchase and send a wedding gift, so it was super easy!”

~ Lara Fenton in MO

Shopped at Babcock Gifts in TN

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Read  reviews from Babcock Gifts' customers:
https://babcockgifts.myshoplocal.com/reviews.cfm

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Each month, our Leaderboard reports the best performers from among 1,500 indie stores, 3,000 brands, and 300,000 products with no man hours. Leaderboard results are automatically tallied and published on the first of each month; it’s as if I have an omnipotent robot that does this work for me. Automation like this is crucial to running a successful business. 

Amazon, Walmart, and other retail giants spend massively on automation because this will decide the winners. In 2025, retailers will

I often visualize a business process or problem, and then sketch it. We'll then convert the sketch into a graphic that we'll post online.  

This process has helped us explain and share many concepts to our members.

The Wall St. Journal reports on Walmart's progress against Amazon.  

Article highlights:

• Walmart delivered 2.5b items on the same day in 2023.
• Walmart delivered 5b items on the same day in 2024.
• E-commerce generates 18% of Walmart's revenue but is not profitable. (This is much like Amazon, which didn’t report a profit for the first 10 years. Walmart is running its online business at a loss.)
• Walmart relies on its own driver fleet named Spark, which it started in 2018, to deliver goods. (The

Congratulations to the following members for being the top gift registry performers in February 2025:

Top-3 Retailers
🥇 P.S. The Letter in Fort Worth, TX 
🥈 Friend & Company in New Orleans, LA
🥉 Pieces of Eight in Lafayette, LA

Top-3 Retail Movers
🥇 Glassworks and Feathers and Cheeks in Pittsburgh, PA / +816%
🥈 Galleria Riverside in Columbus, GA / +706%
🥉 Fincher's in Greenwood, MS / +573%

By gift registry sales / % change in February 2025 online revenue vs. prev. month

Top-3

We track the benefits of automation, and this human error caught my eye. An employee at Citigroup incorrectly typed in a refund amount, and it nearly cost the bank $81 trillion. The bank spotted this error and stopped it. The bank replied that it's adding more automation to its processes to avoid such mistakes.

While the stakes aren't as high for our indie stores, each day we see our 1,500 indie retailers manually entering product data into their POS and online stores. This process is ripe for

Each month, our Leaderboard reports the best performers from among 1,500 indie stores, 3,000 brands, and 300,000 products with no man hours. Leaderboard results are automatically tallied and published on the first of each month; it’s as if I have an omnipotent robot that does this work for me. Automation like this is crucial to running a successful business. 

Amazon, Walmart, and other retail giants spend massively on automation because this will decide the winners. In 2025, retailers will

Thank you to Kathleen Drake for sharing her experience after buying a gift from Northcutt's on Main, a merchant using Shop Local software for their e-commerce and registry services: 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“Easy-to navigate website: clear payment instructions, easy to locate wedding registry, easy to add note to gift recipient, offered a place to include delivery instructions, great selection of gifts—a great shopping experience!”

~ Kathleen Drake in AL

Shopped at Northcutt’s on Main in Dothan, AL

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This video walks through an overview of the Shop Local Wholesale service and how it works for retailers and brands. 

60+ premium brands, including Beatriz Ball, Costa Nova, and Vista Alegre, use the Wholesale Ordering service to receive orders from 1,500+ of America's leading stores. Brands are selling $3.5m and retailers are saving 7 minutes per order using the service.

Webinar includes:

• Quick Facts
• Benefits to You
• Testimonials & Reviews from Members
• Live Demo
• How It Works
  • Step 1:

The Wall St. Journal shares this weekend that Walmart has automated 50% of its fulfillment process, bringing down fulfillment costs by 40%. This 40% in savings will thereafter be used as a pricing advantage against indie stores (and retailers of any size). 
 

Walmart, like Amazon, is spending billions of dollars to accomplish this. The goal is to spend $1b today to save $1m tomorrow on labor and sell $1m more tomorrow. Long term, these numbers snowball and are in Walmart’s favor.

Last

Austin Kleon, the author and creativity guru, offers these four posters for free.  This inspired me to wonder if Shop Local couid offer free posters to our 1,470 indie stores. Indie stores need marketing materials, yet often lack the resources to create them. 

The posters could even be printed small as flyers and put in upright displays.  

We already offer free marketing materials to members. We offer two flyers: a review flyer and a wedding registry flyer.  If they wish,  

Congratulations to the following members for being the top gift registry performers in January 2025:

Top-3 Retailers
🥇 Friend & Company in New Orleans, LA   
🥈 P.S. The Letter in Fort Worth, TX
🥉 Babcock Gifts in Memphis, TN

Top-3 Retail Movers
🥇 Little Brown House in Amarillo, TX / +878%
🥈 Glass Bazaar in Knoxville, TN / +560%
🥉 The Kitchen Table in Hattiesburg, MS / +451%

By gift registry sales / % change in January 2025 online revenue vs. prev. month

Top-3 Wedding

While at Best Buy to buy a Philips Hue light strip, I did some quick research on how product makers and digital service providers explain their benefits and pricing.  

See Best Buys membership program here: 
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/best-buy-membership/best-buy-membership-total/pcmcat1629315977983.c?id=pcmcat1629315977983

• Oxford Floral in Oxford - M List Winner

• Whittington Gifts & Decor in Starkville - Overall Winner 
• Elizabeth Clair's in Jackson, Tupelo, and Oxford - M List Winner
• Fincher's Inc. in Greenwood - M List Winner
• Sassafras in Vicksburg - M

1. A flyer explaining the benefits of the Shop Local service: View explanation PDF here
2. Flyer explaining the service for use