Many businesses are struggling during the state-mandated shelter-in-place orders. One industry that is weathering the storm well is technology. Technology companies often deliver services digitally, which obviously makes them ideal to side-step these orders--but they often utilize another feature that makes them profitable now and in general: subscriptions.
Scott Galloway, a business leader and host of an online business class called 'The Sprint,' recently brought to my attention the ...
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February 5, 2020
February 5, 2020
Gartner shared this advice for managing your company's marketing efforts:
Strategy for the partner marketing program, and how it aligns with the overall brand marketing strategy.
Funding and talent resources dedicated to driving and administering partner marketing relationships.
Campaign modes, or the balance of approaches to partner marketing. “To” campaigns provide information about a brand’s product and service for partners to use internally. &ldquo
In the ‘age of Amazon,’ is your store a liability or asset? Walmart is banking on stores being the physical nexus points of the web.
Did your e-commerce business lose money last year, and you fret over this? Most indie store owners do, but losing money on e-commence is the name of the game as catching up to Amazon’s 25-year head start will take years and lots of losses. Proof: Walmart’s e-commerce operations lost $2b last year, shares the WSJ. Most indie stores will not be able to pursue this ...
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I believe that Constant Contact is falsely promoting it is offering a free online store. I say this because the free service allows you to offer just 3 products and you must display a big advertisement for Constant Contact. Most retailers offer hundreds or thousands of products. A super small number of stores can offer just 3 products online. In addition, most stores don't want a big advertisement at the bottom of their website. Yet, if one were to visit Contact Contact's website services page...
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Casafina Bridge Seminar
Friday, January 17th at 5 pm EST
Location: Casafina showroom
Building 2, Suite 1208B (Next to the Werner Frank showroom)
Why attend?
39% of all e-commerce sales were made on a smartphone on Black Friday, according to research from Adobe.
This growth came at the expense of in-store traffic: In-store traffic on Black Friday fell 2.1% (source: RetailNext).
In sum: everything is going digital. Are you ready?
This article shares points with which we agree: running a website and digital strategy is very expensive yet crucial for one's success. Due to these factors, large companies are often the ones growing because they can better absorb these staffing and software costs.
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November 16, 2019
November 16, 2019
When we make products overseas, are we long-term weakening our businesses and our communities, and in fact strengthening the product’s country of origin? Today’s WSJ makes the point that foreign countries that produce the goods are the ones gaining high-tech jobs and therefore the high-flying lifestyles. As you may have heard, every day a new person becomes a millionaire in China. Can we say the same in America? Historically, businesses and economists approved the strategy of “innovate here, ...
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October 22, 2019
October 22, 2019
How can you prepare for Black Friday / Cyber Monday? Here's a checklist:
1. 'Seed the sale' by telling customers to expect deals. "Promote sales, promote sales, promote sales," said Sucharita Kodali, principal analyst of e-business and channel strategy at Forrester. "It's the number one thing that shoppers look for during the holidays." (Source: Retail Dive)
You can do this via posts on Bridge and social media.
2. Craft an irresistible offer.
3. Organize your upcoming sales / discounts. You can do ...
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September 26, 2019
September 26, 2019
Amazon is launching eyeglasses to help it better view your world, shares today’s WSJ. The ‘invite only’ strategy made me laugh. Oddly, our local Amazon delivery guy rings my doorbell by anything but invitation only. I don’t use Amazon, but he rings it daily when he has packages for other apartments. Alexa, please have your delivery people stop bothering neighbors. :)
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August 11, 2019
August 11, 2019
Fifty percent of the U.S. book market is controlled by Amazon, while Barnes & Noble has 8%. This book market share split shows that shoppers value convenience and price more than customer service. Anyone that says retail can be helped, saved, or fixed by concentrating on anything but convenience and price is wrong.
For example, an HFN columnist whom I won’t name is often extolling the need to make the in-store shopping experience fun and interesting. Similarly, a market building president ...
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July 2, 2019
July 2, 2019
Carol Shroeder, owner of a gift shop, a retail expert, and a Bridge member, shared this advice about inventory:
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Markdowns = Money “Don’t let inventory become family” is one of my favorite retail sayings. We all know the feeling of bringing in merchandise because we love it, hoping that just the right customer will come in who loves it too. It’s sometimes hard to accept the fact that it is costing the shop money to hold onto an item that isn’t selling.
Today’s Times covers deceptive practices on the web. That shopper “Alexandra” that just bought that dress? She doesn’t exist.
Bridge members may recall that in Bridge 1.0 we output featured purchases. Every single featured purchase was real. Bridge embraces honest, factual marketing strategies.
Happy to see Diane Seidle’s lastest strategy article in Tableware Today below. Speaking of hashtags, Bridge created its own ‘$tag’ to similarly offer quick access to product info. Type a dollar symbol “$” before a SKU and the specific item will magically appear below your Chalk.
Tableware Today:
WHAT'S YOUR HASHTAG STRATEGY?
Just in case you’ve been living off the grid for a year or more, a hashtag is simply a word or phrase behind a pound sign. When you use a hashtag that word or phrase becomes ...
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March 21, 2019
March 21, 2019
Happy to see Diane Seidle’s lastest strategy article in Tableware Today below. Speaking of hashtags, Bridge created its own ‘$tag’ to similarly offer quick access to product info. Type a dollar symbol “$” before a SKU and the specific item will magically appear below your Chalk.
Tableware Today:
WHAT'S YOUR HASHTAG STRATEGY?
Just in case you’ve been living off the grid for a year or more, a hashtag is simply a word or phrase behind a pound sign. When you use a hashtag that word or phrase becomes ...
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March 13, 2019
March 13, 2019
Gartner shares that most consumers start their purchase for a brand by using search. Search beats e-mail and social, which makes sense. If you wanted to buy brand X, wouldn't you just go to Google and search for "X"? Of course.
Which then leads us to this point: how well does your business rank for your brands? If a customer Googles brands that you sell, such as X, Y, and Z, where do you rank in Google?
There are some notable statistics and developments in this article including: + More than 10% of Target’s sales came via digital channels. + Stores are promoting in-store pick up. + Stores are shrinking their sizes. Kohl’s is subleasing space to Planet Fitness. + Stores continue to create new private labels—a strategy that is very popular with Amazon. + Stores are benefitting from other stores failing. For example, Toys R Us closing helped Target and Kohl’s.
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March 2, 2019
March 2, 2019
Bridge recently reported to Adobe a security issue. Bridge's team also suggested a strategy to fix the hole. Adobe listened, followed the suggestion, and thanked us in the software patch announcement.
Excerpt:
Acknowledgements Adobe would like to thank the following individuals and organizations for reporting these issues and for working with Adobe to help protect our customers:
Charlie Arehart, Moshe Ruzin, Josh Ford, Jason Solarek, and Bridge Catalog Team
Adobe page showing the patch and credits: ...
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