Recession and Slow Hiring Will Require Need for Optimization SoftwareThe economy is slowing due to myriad factors, including weak hiring. When retailers and brands don’t hire, they’re short-staffed. When they are short-staffed, they’ll need software and technology to fill in the gaps.
Brands and retailers will benefit from our digital service, the Syncing service, that updates online product pricing and pictures for pennies per product. With e-commerce continuing to grow and labor hamstrung, there won’t ...Read more of post
CHECK YOUR PLATES by JASON SOLAREKThe Wall Street Journal recently shared how the used car market has improved in the last 20 years because much of it is now conducted online. When car buyers use the web, they’re more likely to save money (about 2%) and dealers can, in theory, make more with dynamic pricing (about 2%) thereby giving each party a win. Unlike 20 years ago, when we didn’t have smartphones, today 95% of used car purchases start online. While 31% of used car purchases ...Read more of post
Our Retail Predictions Featured in Tableware Today MagazineTableware Today’s Editor Amy Stavis invited me to pen the Last Word column for the August / September issue. I start by comparing e-commerce trends for selling automobiles to selling dinner plates. Online sales in both industries have swelled in the last 25 years. (I entered the e-commerce business at the right time—in 2001.)
I predict that 70% of wedding registry gift givers will never set foot in a physical store by 2030. Currently, that number is at ...Read more of post
Our 8 Year Journey from Bundled Pricing to A La Carte Pricing Back to BundlesWe follow pricing for bundles and tiers of services. Over the last decade, we've tried various pricing approaches, as well as ways to visually convey these service offerings. In this post, I share the pricing for our services for retailers since 2017. In some case, we took a step forward and a step back--it wasn't linear progress. We've drawn inspiration from many sources, including our competitors and Tinder.
Subscription BundlesRecently, when booking a trip to Florida to see family, I was shown an array of bundles by American Airlines. There was the basic flight, and then:
Main Cabin Plus. Included a free checked bag, a more spacious seat, and boarding earlier.
Main Cabin Select. Included an even earlier boarding time and made it easier to change my flight.
First Class. Included the largest, most comfortable seat, priority boarding, two checked bags, and better drinks and
Check Your Plates 🚗Jinjoo Lee in The Wall St. Journal shares how the used car market has improved in the last 20 years because much of it is now conducted online. When car buyers use the web, they are more likely to save money (saving about 2%), and dealers can, in theory, make more with dynamic pricing (about 2%)—thereby giving each party a win. Unlike 20 years ago, when we didn't have smartphones, today 95% of used car purchases start online. While 31% of used car purchases ...Read more of post
View 10 Years of Price Changes by SyncingStores that have a Shop Local Store use the Syncing service to save time and money on product maintenance. After a brand loads their products to their Shop Local account, the products are Synced in real-time to retailers' Stores.
The brands do their respective maintenance work by adding and updating the products—saving the retailer from having to do it. Part of this maintenance includes updating prices for items to ensure they are up to date. By updating ...Read more of post
Alternatives to MyRegistry.comAs a store owner, you know how important it is to choose a registry service that works well for you, your employees, your registrants, and gift-givers (family and friends). In addition to working well, the registry service should offer your store good value (price vs. results).
When looking for registry software, some retailers consider MyRegistry.com for their registry service. MyRegistry.com offers gift registry creation and management features that integrate ...Read more of post
Alternatives to Gift ReggieAs a store owner, you know how important it is to choose a registry service that works well for you, your employees, your registrants, and gift-givers (family and friends). In addition to working well, the registry service should offer your store good value (price vs. results).
When looking for registry software, some retailers consider Gift Reggie for their registry service. Gift Reggie offers gift registry creation and management features that integrate with a ...Read more of post
This mode is designed for administering your account. You can perform functions unique to owning your account, such as adding, editing, and deleting content.
Public Mode
This mode is designed to see your account as a customer sees it or for use
Kate Spade New York @ 20Kate Spade New York tableware and accessories has for two decades held a singular spot on retail shelves and on customers’ tables thanks to a timeless charm and chic stylings. Even after 20 years, the fun, fresh, playfully sophisticated, and refreshingly original collections from Lenox occupy a unique niche in the tableware pantheon.
Kate Spade’s contribution to fashion cannot be understated. She became synonymous with fashionistas everywhere when ...Read more of post
MyRegistry.com ReviewPart of my job is to review registry software. I ensure it works well for retailers, registrants, and gift-givers (family and friends). I also assess whether it offers good value (price vs. results).
When looking for registry software, some retailers consider MyRegistry.com for their registry service. I reviewed a retailer's site using MyRegistry.com and assessed how a customer would make a registry purchase. For privacy purposes, I blurred the store's name in the ...Read more of post
Shipping Prices DeclineThe Wall St. Journal shares that the volume of shipped packages will be the lowest in four years, thereby providing some pricing relief.
Your Shop Local Store has a new feature: Interior designers can now view interior designer pricing for your brands and make purchases. If an interior designer is approved by your business, they can log in to your account and buy items at the wholesale designer price set by your business.
In the example shown, we see an interior designer logged in to BIA Cordon Bleu's account. The interior designer can place wholesale orders at the ...Read more of post
Are You a Brand? Shopify Isn’t For YouBrands may consider using Shopify for their online operations. It’s important to note that brands can’t do many things with Shopify. A key Shopify problem for a brand is that the brand has to have separate “stores” for retail and wholesale customers. The reason is that Shopify doesn’t know what to charge the customer because it doesn’t know if it’s a general public shopper (that pays retail) or a retailer (that pays ...Read more of post
Simplicity ⚪️When Apple launched its new iPhones this month, one of its most noteworthy updates was replacing its Lightning charging cable with a USB-C. This was not a voluntary move or extension of Steve Jobs’s love of simplicity. Apple changed it because the European Union required them to, according to Ben Cohen in The Wall St. Journal. Now, just about every mobile phone in the world (forget just little ol’ Europe) will have one charging solution (USB-C).
Zero Sum Networks ⚔️Andrew Chen shares in 'The Cold Start Problem' that many times, networks are competing in a zero-sum game. One network gets a customer to join their network and thereby not participate in another. For example, when a driver used Lyft instead of Uber, Uber, which Chen helped, lost. And it lost in two regards: Uber lost the revenue from the lost ride, and Lyft gained the revenue. Chen’s team was tasked with getting drivers to use all their time driving for Uber and ...Read more of post
Love Those Margins 💖Dating apps are launching higher-priced premium tiers, according to last week’s The Wall St. Journal. Hinge offers a new $50/month plan, and Tinder is launching a $500/month plan. The League already offers a $1,000 plan. These pricey plans take the sting out of Bumble’s $60/month plan.
Why are companies offering such plans? Because even if Tinder only gets 10% of users, that's millions. Plus, the profit and margins are likely higher for customers using ...Read more of post
New Satin Finish CollectionNew from Salisbury a collection that offers the same quality you expect to find from Salisbury, however at a better price point. Even better, the more you buy the better the price. This collection and special pricing is limited to the 22 items in this catalog.
Syncing Costs a Retailer Less Than a PennyWe do the following seven things for a retailer that Syncs products. The retailer pays $0.00/month because the Syncing brand pays for the service.
We Sync an unlimited number of the brand's products to the retailer's Shop Local Store. The retailer doesn't have to touch Dropbox or Excel.
We give the retailer the ability to download any of the Synced product data (pictures, pricing, etc).
A medium coffee at McDonald’s is $1.99. When a brand syncs with a retailer on Shop Local, it costs the brand $1.40 per month.
For $1.40, we do these seven things for our brand partner:
We sync an unlimited number of the brand’s products to the retailer's Shop Local Store. All updates, including price changes and new introduction launches, happen in real time. The retailer never has to
You're invited to read the article below:
.........................
THE LAST WORD
FREE SHIPPING PAYS OFF
by JASON SOLAREK
Most indie stores don’t have the technical ability or people power to track pricing and offer discounts like free shipping. Indie stores need this information or they’ll be left behind. This information ...Read more of post
Lenox Corporation Interview- Christine BovaIt’s a formidable task, overseeing product development for all of Lenox’s flatware brands, which includes Lenox, Kate Spade, Oneida, Cambridge, Hampton Forge, Reed & Barton, and Gorham. Your tenures at Oneida and Bed Bath & Beyond, as the tabletop buyer, provide a solid foundation for this position.
Prior to Oneida, where I was senior product marketing manager when Lenox acquired us, I was at Bed Bath & Beyond for 12 years, most recently as the ...Read more of post
Save the Date 🗓️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 ...Read more of post
Do You Agree Defaults Are Important? ✅ Yes ___ NoWhen you look at your driver’s license, it lists if you’re an organ donor. Twenty years ago, only 20% of people were donors, but today 80% are—thereby saving millions of lives. Did people become more kind? No, the question on the application was changed from opt-in to opt-out. People signing up for or renewing a license are now by default enlisted in organ donation. Lesson: the right default answer in medical care can save millions of lives. ...Read more of post
Updated Feature: Your Alert to Customers About Paying via TelephoneSome 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:
The Price is Right 🛒When we talk about prices, there are two prices that are important:
The price that we charge clients.
The price our clients charge their customers.
We normally talk about the former, aka how our prices compare with other competitors, like Shopify or wholesale services like Faire.
Of increasing importance to us is what our retailers charge their customers. Walmart recently announced that it was taking brands to account and ...Read more of post
New Feature: More Easily Invite Your BrandsYour Bridge now makes it easier for you to connect with and sell your brands’ products. We have added a new page to invite brands to sync products. This page significantly reduces the number of steps that your store takes to invite a brand.
There is no charge for a member to send sync invites or sync products with a brand. Product Syncing is free for retailers, sales reps, trade marts, and interior designers. Participating brands pay for ...Read more of post
Are We Time Givers or Takers? ⌛️⏳ Scott Galloway, the NYU business professor and firebrand, pens a weekly, attention-grabbing article about business trends. In last week’s post, he noted the rise of the attention economy. (...Yes, my post is an attention-seeker writing about an attention-seeker writing about attention.) Comparing our current economy to those of the past, Mr. Galloway notes that today’s oil is time. He tracks the growth of digital companies like Netflix, Microsoft, ...Read more of post
Dollars and Sense Advice from Mom 👩🦰When I was a kid, my mom instilled in me a lesson to always get paid for my work. When I went to mow a lawn or do my newspaper route, she’d remind me, “Be sure you get paid.” As an adult, these flashbacks are vivid like a scene from Citizen Kane—just swap out the Rosebud sled with my newspaper delivery bike. Today, this lesson still resonates when running Bridge. When calling a store that hasn’t paid its Bridge bill, I&...Read more of post
Before this update, a member would receive an email alert letting it know that a synced product’s retail price had changed. But, this price change history was not shown on the product's Details page.
Now, the Details page shows any recent change as well as past changes. This feature helps retailers and sales reps charge the ...Read more of post
Swimsuits help reveal the costs behind retail goodsDo you love a great deal on a t-shirt or TV? Sure, we all do. Yet, sometimes when we shop, the lower the price we pay, the less we pay: people. People that make the goods (factory workers) and people that sell the goods (aka indie store owners) are the victims in the discount-pricing rush.
Today’s Times shares that making a bathing suit in Sir Lanka costs about $4 per unit while in Portugal it may cost $16. In NYC, the minimum wage is $15/hour—...Read more of post
Businesses Should Want a Membership—Not a Subscription. Why?When talking about memberships and subscriptions, these two business models are sometimes interchanged but actually are different. They often differ in their pricing, customers, and offerings. A subscription is often not a membership, but a membership often encompasses a subscription. A membership is often an elevated and more powerful subscription that collectivizes and leverages the subscribers.
What They Have In Common
With both models, you often pay a...Read more of post
Amazon charged some customers more than others for the same itemIn today’s Times, we learn that Amazon is raising and lowering the prices of items millions of times a day. We also learn that it has displayed different prices for the same item based on who you are. Imagine going in to a store and the paper towels are $3 for the person next to you but $4 for you.
I can attest to Amazon changing prices multiple times a day because Amazon crawls my retailers’ websites multiple times a day. It’s as if they...Read more of post
For indie store to compete, we have to offer competitive pricing and shipping times. Bridge's goal is to help retailers offer the same or lower prices and offer the same or faster shipping.
Human Sell-cologyWe work tirelessly to help our customers. A good spot to see this is on our sale site’s pricing page, which lists 60+ features that clients receive—often for free. (Sometimes I think that we’re philanthropists. Twenty-five percent of retail clients pay nothing each month.) Each feature is one that we’ve labored over.
But, ironically, our hard work may get overlooked and under-appreciated if key psychological insights are overlooked...Read more of post
Expanding Bridge's Customer Base to Help More BrandsBest of Thymes, an indie store in Iowa, just closed (https://bestofthymes.bridgecatalog.com/news.cfm?id=20645). Hopefully, they’ll continue to operate online and keep using Bridge. Best of Thymes is part of an industry-wide series of closures that is affecting large and small retailers. Due to this, brands are increasing their efforts to go D2C. Brands justify this by saying that there are fewer stores to show their wares. While this is true, surely they are ...Read more of post
How Netflix And Bridge Deliver ValueHow much does Bridge cost vs other marketing tools? Let's imagine a printed catalog costs $10 to print and send to a customer. The customer uses it for 10 minutes. It therefore costs $1 per minute.
The Bridge Smart Products service costs a brand $9 per year per retailer. Over that year, a retailer interacts with that Smart Product data for 104 minutes. This number is approximately 2 minutes per week. (Please note: some retailers view Smart Product data at ...Read more of post
Place Wholesale Orders Via BridgeWe have exciting news: Retailers can now place wholesale orders via Bridge. If you are an authorized dealer, you can purchase from these participating brands:
NYT: Shopify vs AmazonYiren Lu shares her experience of setting up a Shopify store in the New York Times magazine. Ms. Lu reports the setup process was easy, but her online Shopify store failed because it lacked marketing, aka eyeballs and orders. In her next article, I hope Ms. Lu tries Bridge. Bridge Store helps members fill the marketing component that Shopify is missing. When a store joins Bridge, Bridge instantly points hundreds of links to the store from other Bridge members...Read more of post
'Made in China:' MEISSEN x ADIDASThe Meissen porcelain brand and Adidas have teamed up to create a pair of iconic tennis shoes. Art meets the street. Stay tuned for pricing and availability.
We are pleased to announce an historic collaboration between the prestigious Meissen porcelain brand and Adidas corporation in introducing what is sure to become a highly sought after pair of iconic tennis shoes. Art meets the street. Stay tuned for pricing and availability. Sipping champagne from a lady's slipper is now passe'.
Tableware Today: Vista Alegre Advertisements Feature Bridge LogoRetailers know that Bridge offers the easiest online tools to help them sell more. For this reason, the distributor Vista Alegre, which is Portugal’s largest producer of porcelain products, promotes Bridge in its advertisements. Retailers using Bridge and reading Tableware Today will see the logo and know that the products shown are already available to sell via the store’s respective Bridge Store. If the retailer does not use Bridge yet, it may join the ...Read more of post