It’s a 40th anniversary for the company founded by Colin Riggs (left) and Ned Voelker’s parents, Abigail and Ed Voelker. Over the last four decades, the entire family has created a curated collection of handmade tableware and giftware for the nation’s independent store retailers.
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Congratulations on a milestone 40th year in business. Are you surprised Abigails has endured? Ned Voelker: We are surprised. It’s a tribute to Ed and Abbie ...
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“We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.”
~ Walt Disney
I read this quote in ‘Show Your Work’ and wondered how it applied to our mission here at Shop Local. I asked my team and they submitted their interpretations. One colleague even used an AI tool.
Team Submissions:
“We don't make Shop Local to make money, we make money to sustain Indie Stores.”
~ Jim
"We didn't make this software just to ...
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Our collaboration with Veronica Beard includes the Jardins Du Monde Planter, which makes for a lovely centerpiece featuring seasonal blooms or dotted throughout your spaces with staple greenery! The planter features drainage so whatever flights of flora fancy you desire can thrive beautifully in your home. ✨
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In the early 2000s, the board game Cranium became a hit. The game combined elements of Scrabble and Pictionary with the goal of helping more people enjoy playing a game. Richard Tait, who created Cranium and sold it to Hasbro in 2008 for $77.5m, passed away in July. Like Mr. Tait, I had been a paperboy, but he went beyond what I ever offered: he came up with a new service that sold breakfast sandwiches along his newspaper route. He increased profits and made customers happier. ...
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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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Jim Collins, in his book BE 2.0, explains how purpose and mission are important to companies. To help explain this, he uses the metaphor of crossing a mountain range and seeing a star on the horizon. Your purpose is to reach the spot on the horizon below the star. The current mission is climbing up the mountain you’re on. The next mission is climbing up the next mountain and so forth in order to get closer to the spot on the horizon. You will have many missions, and may never ...
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In the book Great by Choice, Jim Collins posits that processes are key to an organization's success. As an example, he cites John Wooden, the NCAA championship-winning UCLA basketball coach, who trained athletes on processes that included everything from shooting to tying one’s shoelaces. In practicing, a player may perfect their shoelace tying and do thousands of repetitive free-throw shots. When we watch a game from the nosebleed seats like me (...what can I say, I’m ...
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Upon boarding my flight to Mexico last week, did I eagerly wait the arrival of the bar cart? Maybe, but not before cracking open the book Great by Choice by Jim Collins. I recommend the book because it provides new approaches to success. One takeaway in the book is not new: we’ve got to work each day. Just like the anecdote in the book’s introduction about Norwegian explorer Amundsen, we have to put in miles each day. In a race to the South Pole, Amundsen's unprepared ...
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In this video, I discuss:
1. Why indie stores are having a hard-time competing online. 2. What these stores need to do to overcome the obstacles. 3. How Bridge's software can help them quickly.
I recommend that one view their website as a 'fish tank.' For starters, it has to be filled with brands, products, and features. When a store does this, the fish (aka the store) will thrive.
You can view the video larger at Vimeo:
https://vimeo.com/639288608
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These days, ugly Amazon warehouses are beating up pretty retail stores. Many stores in 2020 had record online sales that made up 40% or more of revenue, but they are struggling because they had to bear the burden of retail stores. Retail stores cost more per square foot to rent, furnish, and maintain. They also cost more to staff. A warehouse person need not be a people person and a snazzy dresser; they can exhibit anger management issues and ...
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Jim Power, the legendary East Village mosaic artist, is profiled in the blog Bedford & Bowery. We share with Jim a passion to make local neighborhoods vibrant. Bridge commissioned Jim to create four mosaics for Bridge. Whereas Jim uses pieces of tile, marbles, and broken plates, Bridge's 'mosaics' are computer pixels. Regardless of the material, we both seek to help indie stores thrive. A vibrant community is a mosaic of indie businesses, artists, and organizations. The mosaics ...
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Material Possessions, a gift shop in Illinois, needed a quick solution to boost its online presence. With Amazon and Covid-19 nipping at indie stores' heels, stores need to quickly boost their online offering.
In just 24 hours, Material Possessions opened a Bridge account and is currently offering 15,000+ products for sale. The retailer can sell these products directly from its Bridge Store--or it can export the products and import them into its parent website (https://...
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July 23, 2019
July 23, 2019
Hello I'm Suzanne Roberts, "When leaves are falling, Autumn is calling!" Or in our case... "When Round Top boxes arrive, our fall stock thrives!" Want to get a head start on Fall decor? We are ready for you! Don't forget to like and Share! What's your favorite fall brand? We have enjoyed helping your homes say "Hello Fall!" For 44 years here Snider Plaza !
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September 17, 2018
September 17, 2018
Why is retail becoming a software business? For a few reasons, including: 1. Convenience: It’s easier to shop on your mobile vs drive to the store. 2. Selection: you can search 10,000s of items online. 3. Smarter: you can not only search lots of products, but the software will likely do the ‘thinking’ for you. The major retailers’ software has artificial intelligence to show you the most popular items, the ones with the best reviews, etc. In essence, the software tells you what the best item for...
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March 13, 2018
March 13, 2018
Instagram has a virus: fake users. Like Twitter and Facebook, the service partially thrives on bogus users and fake content.
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December 26, 2017
December 26, 2017
PRESS RELEASE / For Immediate Release
Indie Stores Report Double-Digit Growth in 2017 by Sharing Products
Forty-two brick and mortar Main Street retailers that participated in Bridge’s annual survey said their sales grew up to 50% for a brand by using Bridge’s product-syncing service.
"I do about 20% more business a year by being a part of the Bridge network,” said Mary Beth Wood, owner of the Crystal Plate in Gainesville, Georgia, and a user of the Bridge software. "It gives me more time to sell ...
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April 17, 2017
April 17, 2017
From Sunday's NY Times, this article highlights how retail is at a tipping point with the shift from brick & mortar to e-commerce. While it is a big concern to all, we have you covered: Bridge has helped its retailers process 32% more in sales over the last year vs the year before. Bridge's mobile retail software has seen an increase of 55% year over year. As the retail landscape continues to shift, we are moving right along with it.
Main Street vs. Wall Street How a 4-person web design firm united 200 indie stores against a $40m competitor
What if someone said that they're spending $40 million to beat up your small business? That's what new online gift registry retailer Zola plans to do. (Please see attached NY Times picture.) Gift registries are the last refuge of small, Main Street businesses and Zola has borrowed (in the banking world they call it "raised") $40m to swipe this registry business. Zola is backed by the same ...
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May 14, 2016
May 14, 2016
We Are Not Broadway
I was chatting with a sales rep whom I highly admire this week about retail and he suggested that Neimans and Nordstrom could reverse their dipping sales by hiring more people and / or providing better in-store customer service. He likened going to the store as going to a Broadway show where if you offer a good experience, people will pay more and business will thrive.
Here are my thoughts on this: 1. We're not Broadway. Retailers sell commodities: hats, pants, cups, plates, ...
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