How to help your registrants share their registry with family and friends.
November 20, 2023
Your Shop Local Store has a new feature: We've made it easier for gift registrants to share their registries. There is now a new "Share Your Registry" card on the Overview page that allows registrants to share their registry via mobile or email.
The registrant can share their registry by doing the following:
If a registrant wishes to share their registry via mobile, they can scan the QR code with their mobile phone and share the generated link with their family and friends.
What universal standards can teach us about simplicity regarding e-commerce platforms.
September 25, 2023
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).
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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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, Facebook, and TikTok that...
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Adam Sigel, who heads up sales at Savanna Bee’s indie stores, recently showed me his ‘business card:’ a piece of metal with a QR code on it. I scanned Adam’s QR code and my phone offered to place his contact information in my phone’s address book. This not only saved me time. Behind the scenes, the software allows Adam to see who clicks on his scanned data—one can’t do that with a traditional business card.
In the movie Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon, who plays a handsome MIT janitor moonlighting as a math savant (can one say, “Hollywood career vehicle”?), woos a young lady (played by the actress Minnie Driver) by outmaneuvering a few competing, obnoxious cads. When Damon’s character gets the girl's telephone number, he proudly shows it to the other guys and boasts, with his South Boston access, “How 'bout ‘dem apples?” I imagine Tim Cook imitating this...
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Goldsmith Cardel, a premium retailer in Ohio, shared with us this picture of its Bridge QR code in its window. When a customer scans this with their mobile phone, it will take them directly to Goldsmith Cardel’s Bridge Store home page. This saves the customer many steps, including: Googling the store, sorting through the results, and selecting the right result.
Bridges gives each retailer free QR codes for its important pages. You are invited to find these codes on your ...
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Your Bridge has a new feature: you can now more quickly add product pictures. You can now drag an image from another web page to your account to add the image. This saves you many steps compared to the traditional path.
To view your new feature, visit a product's Detail page. Below the image, please click on the button "Add Product Image." You will see a drop-down. You can choose the steps that best fit your needs.
1. Find the image you will load for the product...
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A new trend in retail is vacant shops in urban neighborhoods being converted to small warehouses. In the East Village on 10th Street, we see on the left the new warehouse model; on the right we see a traditional retailer. For the ‘store’ on the left, the customer orders via their mobile phone and then does a pickup or gets a delivery.
I’m seeing more of these ‘zombie stores’ around the city. Just in the East Village, I’ve seen four: ...
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Scott Galloway, a business leader and NYU professor, shares that we're now spending over 4 hours a day on our mobile phones--up from just 20 minutes in 2010. (…I wrote part of this post on my iPhone.) What does this mean? Lots of opportunities for Amazon--as well as Facebook, Instagram, and other tech titans--to sell to us. Our cell phones are, in essence, 1,000 'buy buttons' in our pockets (or on our nightstands) that encourage us to buy stuff online, any time of the day.
Scott Galloway, an NYU marketing professor and soon-to-be CNN host, suggests that when we assess a market, we start by asking how much one's experience using the service has changed in the past few decades. For example, when you go to your doctor’s office, if you were to spin around and pretend it’s 1990, how different is your experience today vs. 30 years ago? Scott often critiques doctors' offices, hospitals, and colleges because he believes they have not evolved enough in services...
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There are many e-commerce platforms from which to choose. A store owner can choose from more than 30 platforms including Bridge, Shopify, Big Commerce, and Big Cartel. Unfortunately, very few software providers are easy to set up and use. Most importantly, they may not improve retail sales. A store owner is surely mindful of increasing costs and wasting time on software.
Bridge, our e-commerce platform, helps more than 700 indie stores offer a website and bridal registry that...
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This week, Amazon launched its online pharmacy targeting the 3.8 billion prescriptions filled in the U.S. each year. Shares of major pharmacy chains dropped about 10% on the news. Amazon honed this weapon in its Seattle lab and is eagerly unleashing it on retail chains and mom-and-pop pharmacies.
Something struck me while reading this news: Does Amazon remind you of Covid-19? The similarities:
Amazons kills many businesses in industries it touches. Pharmacies are now worried
Are brands bypassing stores? A new survey says 'yes' they are: 40% of Americans shopped directly from a brand in the past year, according a Diffussion survey.
Shoppers are choosing to bypass stores because the brands are undercutting them on prices, and offering faster and cheaper shipping.
How are brands getting in front of customers? Answer: Facebook and Instagram. A shopper visits a retailer's website for brand X, then Facebook puts a tracking pixel on the shopper, and then ...
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December 27, 2019
December 27, 2019
The retail store floor is being transformed in to an ‘app store,’ shares todays Times. Employees armed with mobile phones are helping customers using specialized apps.
The Times article also shares that retail clothing jobs in NYC shrunk 9% between 2013 to 2018.
Many of us will be with our family and friends this Thursday. I'll take a moment then to give thanks to all the indie retailers that enrich our communities. I'll thank the indie designers that fill our stores and homes with beautiful products.
When I'm in my friend's kitchen, someone may say they need a new spatula from Amazon, or after dinner ask Alexa to turn on Amazon TV. When they do, I'll consider those actions in light of the holiday. I'll share why this is important to consider.
There’s a massive retail and in particular shipping war going right before our eyes: Walmart and Amazon are trying to out deliver each other. Why? Quick delivery + Massive selection = Retail Success in 2019 and beyond
I believe the future of retail is about big selection and quick shipping / pick up. The ‘interface’ to manage these features will be a shopper’s mobile phone. To support this belief, I designed our new software to meet this trend. You’ll notice in our new 2.0 Bridge software that ...
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November 19, 2018
November 19, 2018
Rosenthal Launches New Wholesale Site Powered By Bridge
*** PRESS RELEASE ***
Rosenthal USA, a subsidiary of Arcturus Group, launched a new wholesale website for its family of brands Rosenthal, Versace, Raynaud and other premium brands on November 1st, 2018. The company's retailers and sales reps can login to the mobile friendly website and view real-time stock levels, wholesale pricing, and price lists. The website adapts to the user's country and shows US or Canadian prices and documents.
I have a confession: I think Amazon can teach us something.
While I lead a fight to stop Amazon, I believe we can learn something by watching its massive growth.
We first have to accept this fact. Ready for it?
Here it is: you're in the software business.
Retail is becoming a software business for a few reasons, including:
1. Convenience: It’s easier to shop on your mobile vs. drive to the store. Proof: mobile sales are up 40% year over year. Indie stores have to close each night. Amazon is always ...
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