In this week's New Yorker magazine, Charles Duhigg explores how venture capitalists may be harming our businesses. The article shares that instead of the best company winning, the charismatic charlatan with the most venture capital backing may be winning. In WeWork's case, the company almost won by reaching its IPO. Yet, even bottomless buckets of money couldn't save the company from the economics of office sharing--and its wildcard CEO Adam Neumann.
We have a few businesses in our retail ...
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Our indie retailers are being hunted by four major forces:
Amazon
Big-box stores
Brands (selling direct)
Zola
While we've known about Amazon and big-box stores for some time, they are becoming more sophisticated. Amazon is so powerful now that it's the focus of anti-trust inquiries by the government. Big-box stores are spending millions on their digital operations.
Bridge's goal is to give indie stores great software that reverses the gains being made by these forces.
...
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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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Your Bridge Store ranks highly in Google. As a test, try this: Google "Juliska Dinner Plate." In the results, you'll see two indie stores outperform Zola (a million-dollar funded online retailer) and Houzz (another well-funded, venture capital-backed player). The two indies stores do not have any venture capitalists or bankers funding them. They simply use: Bridge.
Thalia and Dahlia, an Ohio-based store, use Bridge. It ranks just below Saks Fifth Avenue--and it's just 3 ...
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Zola's slowdown is good news for indie stores--but Zola will likely be back. While it is over-leveraged with venture capital and over-valued, the wedding registry business will rebound next year.
Indie stores are not the only ones to get a reprieve: market buildings were playing defense against Faire, the wholesale ...
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December 10, 2019
December 10, 2019
Indie retailers are being hunted online by Amazon, Zola, and brands using their direct to consumer sites. They are triangulating around their prey. These entries are picking off their online customers and thereby their ‘supply chains‘ that keep them afloat online. Without online sales, the indie stores are starved of the one area in which the retail industry is growing.
Amazon and brands target general public orders. Due to the lower prices, brand name, and marketing, they'll get those ...
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Market buildings are looking down the barrel of a gun. To find out why, check out my article in this month's Tableware Today.
THE LAST WORD
CHART YOUR FUTURE BEFORE BIG TECH DOES
by JASON SOLAREK
Market buildings are starting to take digital seriously. Why, finally? Because Amazon is nipping at retailers’ heels? No. Because Zola is stealing indie stores’ registry business? No. Sadly, the main thing that’s brought markets up to speed has to do with their own dollars and ...
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I went into a small shop in New York City yesterday and admired all their nice tableware. It offered mugs, cups, plates, drinking glasses, and vases—all items that are great for gift registries.
The store was empty. I thought it may be a good time ask the store manager if the store offered an online registry. He replied "yes." I was surprised because there was no signage in the store that said it offered a gift registry. I shared with him what Bridge is and explained that we...
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What company in the tabletop industry has invested in a tech company? I don't know of one. I believe our industry should be doing what UPS does and investing in tech--and I'll explain why.
As today's WSJ shares, UPS has a venture capital arm and it has this because smart businesses know that most businesses are becoming more like: software businesses. Therefore, businesses have to ‘buy’ that know-how by investing in a tech company. UPS knows that it doesn't have the internal tech know-how to...
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June 26, 2019
June 26, 2019
I’m just back from the Dallas show. I met with some wonderful people from the mart and they’re ready to go digital.
In general, I’m seeing that more market buildings are finally taking digital seriously. Why are they finally doing so? Because Amazon is nipping at their retailers heels? Because Zola is stealing the indie store’s registry business? No. Sadly, the main thing that brought the markets up to speed on the weather outside is: their own livelihood. Faire, a startup tech company ...
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June 16, 2019
June 16, 2019
Business lunch: how retail is changing :)
Old retail is 80% analog. This consists of: the physical store, staff, customer service training, etc. What you’d expect walking into a Saks or Macy's. And it's about 20% tech: computers, cash registers (POS systems), mobile shopping, Google ranking, apps, hiring social influencers, Instagram, etc.
Today, the retailers that are well positioned, growing, and 'hot' carry the opposite equation: they're 20% analog and 80% tech.
Friday, July 12, 2019
Location: Skyros Showroom / AmericasMart
Wish to grow your gift registry business?
Join Skyros Designs and Jason Solarek for drinks and a free seminar. Jason Solarek will show you 7 free steps to grow your registry business.
Friday, July 12th 5 - 6 pm Skyros Designs Showroom Building 2 / 9th Floor / Suite 919 (next to the escalators) AmericasMart Drinks and lights snacks will be served Cost: Free
Why attend? • Retailers with gift registry services report selling 13% more. • Two million weddings will occur in the U.S this year. • The average ...
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Thursday, June 20, 2019
Thursday, June 20, 2019
Location: Dallas Market Center
You're Invited...
Join us to learn the 7 secrets to growing your gift registry business.
Why Attend? • Sell 13% more ~ Retailers offering a gift registry service report selling more. • Two million weddings will occur in the U.S this year. • The average gift ...
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Whether you serve your wine in an IKEA glass costing $2.99, or in hand-cut Baccarat crystal costing 50 times as much, sooner or later you'll have one concern—the ring-shaped stains that wineglasses tend to leave behind.
Some new hand-blown crystal stemware is now strong enough to go into the dishwasher, Jeff Marcus reports on Lunch Break. One