Stores and brands sometimes ask us: How does Bridge compare to Faire?
I thought we'd compare the two service providers.
Similarities: Bridge & Faire
Audience. Both service the retail industry. In particular, both service brands and retailers. Bridge also services sales reps, and Faire tries to steer clear of them--which is one reason reps don't like Faire much.
Delivery method. Both are online platforms.
Service offered. Faire is a wholesale marketplace. It
Relying on file-sharing services like Dropbox to sell products often costs stores an extra $750 per brand and hurts sales
I work with 900 retailers who tell me they are drowning in a sea of Dropbox folders containing Excel files and product images. What can we do about this? First, let’s review what’s happening: When a brand wants to share products with a store, it emails the store a link from Dropbox or a similar file-sharing service. A store may receive five to ten Dropbox links...
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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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This advertisement reminded me of our goal at Bridge: save you time. You weren’t born to update your website. Many retailers report that Bridge cuts their website maintenance by 80%—which means 80% less time in front of a computer.
We save Kenny Cohen, owner of Contemporary Concepts in Pittsburgh, PA, hundreds of hours each year. He remarked about Bridge:
"When we switched to Bridge Store, we cut our website maintenance costs by 86%. Instead of ...
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MEMBERSHIP SURGES 50% IN E-COMMERCE COMMUNITY Online Shopping Boom Drives Retail Industry to Team Up On Bridge
NEW YORK, NY, July 30, 2021 – Bridge, an e-commerce community, reported a record increase in membership as the pandemic continued to rattle the retail landscape. In the last 12 months, 275 retail stores joined Bridge, bringing the total membership to more than 826 stores—a 50% increase. ...
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Navarra’s, a fine jewelry and gift store in Lake Charles, LA, signed up for a Bridge Store on May 5th, 2021. It instantly received an online store and a gift registry for free. Within 2 days, its online store also displayed 10,000+ products. The store was able to offer many products quickly using Bridge’s Smart Products service. The service crowdsources product maintenance and allows each respective brand to effectively manage its items through the platform to free up time for Bridge...
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Pizazz, a bridal and gift shop in Columbus, MS, signed up for a Bridge Store yesterday. It instantly received from Bridge an online store and an online gift registry for free. Within one day, it also offered 23,000+ products online. The store was able to quickly offer so many products using Bridge's Smart Products service. The service crowdsources product maintenance and allows each respective brand to manage its items behind the scenes.
Today’s WSJ shares that independent stores, including hardware stores, book shops, and pharmacies, have teamed up to stop Amazon’s bad practices. The group, called Small Business Rising, seeks to use anti-trust laws to prevent Amazon marketplace from selling its own goods—which compete with retailers using the platform. Amazon has been shown to use a retailer’s customer and sales data and bypass the retailer (it’s own customer) in order to make a bigger profit. ...
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As a group, we're stronger. 'Me' websites, like those offered by Shopify, put businesses in a silo and isolate them. The store is left to fend for itself alone.
In contrast, Bridge is a social e-commerce platform that leverages the strengths of the group. We crowd-source product maintenance to show more products and sell more.
As such, be believe in: We > Me. This is 'the algebra of Bridge' ;)
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When you run an online store, a major cost is adding and updating products. Adding 1,000 products to your website often costs about $750 and requires 50 hours. What if there was a cheaper, quicker way? And what if you could offer better product data at the same time? There is: Smart Products.
The Smart Products service outputs in your Bridge Store all the products from a brand that you sell, with professional pictures, accurate prices, and product dimensions. This service is...
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What if there was a way to cut your labor costs and boost your sales? There is. Your employees work the cash register, stock shelves, clean, and provide customer service. They also: update your website. As you know, these days customers expect a website to offer tens of thousands of products. Amazon has hundreds of millions of products. You have to add products to your site to survive.
You need someone to add products to your website, then update those products. On ...
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Contemporary Concepts, one of America’s premier luxury gift and tabletop stores, cut its website maintenance costs 90% by joining Bridge. The store, located in Pittsburgh, PA, joined Bridge this month. Before joining Bridge, the store was responsible for managing about 56,000 products online. The staff had to update prices for each item, find pictures, and load descriptions. By joining Bridge and using Bridge's product updating service (Smart Products), the store could offload ...
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VIETRI AND BRIDGE PARTNER TO HELP INDEPENDENT STORES
Retailers Can Receive $150 For Joining Bridge Network
July 15, 2020
NEW YORK, NY – VIETRI, known as the premium importer of luxury tabletop goods from Italy, has launched a new program to help its independent specialty retailers online and in-store. VIETRI has agreed to offer its authorized retailers a credit of $150 towards future purchases by opening a free account with the e-commerce community ...
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When a business offers a website, it's a costly venture. A business, such as an indie store, brand, or sales rep group, will build the site and then have to maintain it. On a day-to-day basis, it has to ensure the pages load quickly. This often requires the business use image-optimization software to reduce the page size and a CDN (content delivery network) to get the content closer to the visitor's geographic location. These costs add up.
Bridge and Shopify both bundle many services under a ...
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We're happy to share that Halcyon Days has joined Bridge as a Smart Brand. Please find the press release below.
For Immediate Release
Halcyon Days Partners with Bridge
English luxury lifestyle brand joins the e-commerce community to support U.S. retailer base
March 30, 2020
New York, NY — Halcyon Days, a designer of English handcrafted and manufactured luxury goods, has joined an online sales platform to help its authorized retailers increase sales.
&...
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This graphic from the cover of ‘The Business Book’ caught my eye. Bridge helps businesses eliminate unnecessary steps, and it’s beneficial to lay out all the steps Bridge helps retailers skip.
Without Bridge’s Smart Products service, retailers would go through the following steps when adding a product to their website:
1. Realize they need a product on their website.
2. Google the product.
3. From the Google results, identify the correct product.
4. Download the ...
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September 17, 2019
September 17, 2019
Stack those pancakes high and top it with Kettle Ridge syrup! Why is this sweet stuff so delicious? Because it’s local and made with love! This little farm is finding ways to educate and entertain their guests to the farm and we are ALL about that. If you haven’t head of Kettle Ridge, it might be time to pull up a chair to the breakfast table for a big treat. We were curious about how the modern day farmer gets their start and what goes into creating the sweet life on a sustainable farm.
In few words : innovative, unique and different range of product. Very important for a correct presentation of this collection is to make known to all our potential customers that the use of some pieces of this collection (See placemat for example ) compared to similar products in fabric or plastic allows a huge savings in terms of washing and maintenance. The products of Fashion collection are practically and virtually indestructible .
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March 8, 2018
March 8, 2018
BRANDS AND SALES REPS Did you know: most of your stores pay about $2 to add one of your items to their website?
When a retailer adds 1,000s of items, that gets very expensive quickly. Therefore, most stores give up and don’t add your items online. That is horrible for your sales.
Most stores pay about $5 per item to add the item to their website and maintain it.
If a store offers 1,000s of items, that gets very expensive quickly. Therefore, most stores give up and don’t add items online.
What if there was a way to cut this cost? There is. Bridge puts items online for retailers for $.01 a piece. As such, Bridge has cut maintenance costs for 100s of stores from $5.00 to $.01. We’re saving each store $1,000s and even $10,000s.
With Bridge’s technology, indie stores and brands ...
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