How a drawing on a bar napkin led to a software platform that processes trillions of calculations
April 15, 2024
In 2007, while sitting at the pub Moran’s with a beer, I drew a sketch on a napkin that would change our business. I drew a software model that would allow an indie store to instantly show (and sell) thousands of products online—without any labor. (The secret sauce: The respective brand would do the product update work for the merchants.) The immediate goal was to help my two retailers more efficiently load products onto their websites (and save me the boredom of doing it).
How to track packages in real-time in order to save time and make customers happier.
January 11, 2024
Your Shop Local Store has a new feature: You (and your customers) can now easily see real-time shipping status for an order. Your Store displays the current shipping status (in transit, delivered, etc.) and the complete tracking history for the order.
Before this update, one had to view the shipping service’s website (e.g FedEx.com) to view its status. Now, you or shoppers can view all orders' real-time status on your Shop Local Store and in emails.
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 to let customers know that your store will call them to receive payment for their order.
January 17, 2023
Some Bridge merchants do not accept credit cards online. The merchant calls the customer (after they placed the order) to collect the customer's credit card information. For merchants that do not accept cards online, your Bridge has an updated feature that makes it easier for customers to expect a call from the store. A customer will now see a banner with a green telephone icon on the final checkout page. The banner displays this message:
In a 2007 article in The New Yorker, Atul Gawande, a surgeon and an author, advocatedthat more hospitals use checklists. He cited many medical studies showing how checklists save lives (and money). Implementing one checklist, a hospital "…prevented forty-three infections and eight deaths, and saved two million dollars in costs." The startling part: the list was only five steps long! In other words, people don’t consistently follow...
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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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Reports suggest that 50% of purchases start on Amazon.com, and Amazon wants to keep it this way. Yet, businesses and merchants increasingly want to sell their products via their own DTC (direct to consumer) site, retailers' websites, Facebook, Instagram, and more. Due to this, Shopify, which powers many DTC and retailer websites, is a growing thorn in Amazon's dominance of retail. Shopify reportedly helps power more than 30% of online U.S. retail sales.
Bridge's ability to process retail purchases using credit cards on Authorize.net was suspended today through approximately 4 pm EST. The issue is fixed now.
The reason for this is early this AM Authorize.net changed its processing location to Singapore and did not alert us. They updated their API domain to a Singapore-based IP. Since that city state is a hotbed for hacker activity, Bridge historically has blocked all traffic all incoming (and outgoing) traffic to Singapore as a ...
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Covid-19 has changed how people are shopping. Many states have banned stores from being open. And, Amazon is processing millions of online orders. Let's get your website ready for this new era.
You're invited to a new, free webinar:
Website Preparation in Response to Covid-19
While stores are closing, Bridge sales are growing.
Bridge is processing $4k more per day in orders for our retailers compared to the same period last year. This boost is particularly relevant considering more than 7k brick-and-mortar stores will close this year.
When viewed annually, this $4k increase will results in more than $1.2 million dollars in additional sales for our retailers, brands, and reps using the Bridge network. As a reference, in our early years, we did about $1m in sales in ...
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September 3, 2019
September 3, 2019
What is your customer lifetime value (CLV)? Customer acquisition cost (CAC)? Check out this article to learn how to calculate it:
Other important metric tools: + Customer Conversion Rate (CCR) + Average Order Value (AOV) + Online CRR (Customer Retention Rate) +Online Order Frequency + Average Order Processing Time + Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Are you paying credit card fees each month? If so, you may be interested in what store owner Laura May did.
Laura May, who owns the Ivy House in Texas, was paying thousands of dollars in fees to accept credit cards in her store each month. She thought she may be paying too much in fees. She asked Bridge to review her credit card statements. Bridge reviewed the statements and found problems preventing her from getting the fair, lower rates. In the end, Bridge saved her more than $7,000 per year ...
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December 12, 2018
December 12, 2018
See that thing that you’re typing on? Someone created that, and one of those people was a woman named Evelyn from the Bronx. This week’s Times shares how Mrs. Berezin helped give birth to word processors and thereby our computers that we use every day.
This holiday season is going to be crazy. Customers will be rushing to checkout. Every spot in your store will be taken. What if there was a way to more quickly checkout customers and not take up counter space? There is: a mobile credit card scanner.
Do you need a mobile credit card scanner? If so, just ask Bridge. We rent mobile units to customers that have processing setup with us.
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October 24, 2018
October 24, 2018
Are you ready to lose $500? You could if you don't update your authorize.net account settings.
Recently, an identity thief entered 2,000 different credit cards on a retailer's Bridge website. They did so using a bot that entered in card information automatically into the website. Please note: an identify thief can do this process on just about any e-commerce platform—it’s not unique to Bridge. Credit card fraud is widespread online. Many thieves buy files of 1,000s of stolen credit cards and ’...
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July 31, 2018
July 31, 2018
AmEx ripped off customers reports today’s WSJ. Does that sound familiar? Again and again I butt heads with AmEx over their high fees. I really need to stop using their credit card. They promote a “small business” day, yet again and again charge high processing fees for services to small businesses. They’re a Janus and I don’t need bi-polar service providers.
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Watch the New Training Webinar:
Quickly Process Gift Registry Orders
.......................................
You have tons of gift registry orders--but what if you're wasting time by processing them incorrectly?
Good news: in our new training webinar we show you how to quickly--and correctly--process registry orders.
Watch webinar:
1. Write your store name in the comment window below.
2. We'll email you your access link to watch the webinar.
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October 1, 2017
October 1, 2017
Do you accept credit cards? If so, you are likely losing almost $200 a year. The reason is that your store likely has not completed its PCI compliance or it has expired.
Are you being charged a fee? Here's how to find out... 1. Please look on your credit card processing statement and see if you are being charged.
The charge will be in the “FEES” section and resemble something like this:
PCI NON-VALIDATION -$15.95
2. If you are not being charged this fee—and therefore are PCI compliant, then visit ...
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August 13, 2017
August 13, 2017
Laura, who owns Ivy House in Texas, will save $7,000 in credit card fees this year. That's enough to take her family to Italy on vacation or buy five Apple computers for her staff.
How did she save this money? Laura asked me to review her credit card statements. I found that the credit card processor was charging her too much.
I then showed Laura that she could save $7,000 per year if she moved to Bridge’s processing. She gets the same or better in-store processing services and saves $7,000.