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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Small businesses are getting hacked via Facebook ads, shares Today’s The Wall St. Journal. The ads purport to offer Google’s AI engine Bard, but instead steal the business’s social media account access.
EMON MAASHO, CEO AND PRESIDENT OF ORREFORS, NORTH AMERICA, is representative of the exciting trajectory in this 125-year operation. The über-exec joined the New Wave Group in 2013, a time when Orrefors and Kosta Boda (OKB) were underperforming assets in the portfolio. "Our crystal brands are national treasures and a part of Swedish history," Maasho affirms. And he wanted a front row seat in their revitalization. Maasho was placed in charge of the new hotel and restaurant division ...
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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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Owning a business is no small feat, but in recent years, women have taken on starting their own businesses, leaving the nine-to-five to become entrepreneurs. In 2022, they were more likely to start a business than men. Last year, women-owned businesses had higher earnings growth (27% increase) than male-owned firms (22%). Still, male-owned businesses received $93,000 in funding, while women-owned businesses received $56,000. There are nearly 13 million women-owned businesses in the U.S., and the...
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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.)
If passed, the law would bar huge online platforms such as Amazon’s e-marketplace, Apple’s app store, and Google’s search engine from giving preferential treatment to the company’s own products and services, such as steering consumers to in-house products instead of competitors’ offerings in a way that harms competition.
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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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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Let’s imagine a retailer wants to operate an online store. What would the retailer and its customers experience when using Bridge vs other software? We found that a retailer using Bridge can go from having no web store to one with thousands of products in under an hour. And, there’s no charge. Other software doesn’t offer this ability.
To highlight our findings, we put together this comparison graphic showing Bridge Store and Shopify. (We chose Shopify to ...
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Offering products that make people smile is a winning strategy. RetailDive shares that leading shoe brands Vans and Adidas are running with this strategy. Adidas recently offered Lego and Meissen shoes, and Vans offers shoes inspired by local businesses from across the country.
The sales of these shoes can be minimal, yet the effort is a marketing gold because its gets free press mentions and this helps the brand's halo.
Vans' Zabars shoes are part of a larger Vans campaign that ...
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In last week's RetailDive, Kaarin Vembar penned an article about small businesses and their pains during the pandemic. Ms. Vembar and RetailDive promote the groundswell to e-commerce but sadly shortcut its existence in their very article.
She interviews the owner of Adorned Abode in Tacoma but doesn't add a link to the store's website--which would've boosted the store's Google ranking and increased clicks from readers, and she doesn't give much attention to the store's website offerings. ...
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Recently, there has been a big push to shop local in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Small businesses are promoting each other through signs posted in windows. It's great to see indie shops build a network of support and take a stand against big-box stores!
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I saw this poster in a shop window today while walking around Brooklyn. It's nice to see fellow small businesses taking a stand against Amazon and big commerce!
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There is a general feeling among the public that Amazon is a ruthless behemoth. A survey conducted by CNBC|SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey showed that 59% of the public think Amazon is bad for business. "This represents a significant shift from just two years ago, when opinion was nearly split between those saying Amazon is bad for small businesses (37%) and those saying it’s good (33%)."
One of the many reasons Amazon is viewed this way is because of ...
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Do businesses like Amazon that short-change our community affect our ability to respond to a crisis?
In this pandemic, Bridge thanks first responders and the many people that help our communities work together. When I think of communities during Covid-19, Amazon comes to mind. I do think there is value in looking back at the last 24 months leading up to today and asking: did Amazon slow down our community's ability to respond?
Amazon historically pays less in corporate taxes than other ...
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April 18, 2020
April 18, 2020
Cheeks Comfort Project For Nurses!
We are so excited to announce the Cheeks Comfort Project!
In an effort to give back to our frontline nurses fighting COVID-19, we are sponsoring gift bags with comfy and cozy items as a THANK YOU. Please join us in donating gift bags starting at $50 and help the community and small businesses stay afloat during these unprecedented times.
For more info call 412.915.1803 or email [email protected] .
The link is up for anyone who wants to buy a T-shirt to support local Dublin small businesses! You can choose the business you want to support ($5 of your purchase of each shirt) before you check out! We would love for you to choose Colleen's! Every little bit helps...we are all in this together!!
Our local retailers, our ❤⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Now more than ever, small businesses need our support. As we’re actively practicing social distancing, please keep in mind the role local businesses play in our everyday lives. If you are able, we encourage you to shop local, and if you cannot, please take a moment to shop by phone or purchase a gift card for someone special to use at a later date. We will all get through this together.
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