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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Today’s Times shares that Amazon Prime members often spend twice as much compared to those that aren’t members. This led to me ponder: What if a first step to reducing Amazon’s monopolies is just canceling a $119/year ‘membership’? Prime may be Amazon’s strength—as well as its achilles. If we can find a way to undermine it, I believe one can save money and our communities.
While I was down in Dallas evangelizing about Bridge, the Dallas Market Center’s software provider and sister company (called MarketTime) invited me to their offices for a meeting. The goal of the meeting was to explore teaming up to help brands and retailers speed products to market, as well as get a leg up on the competition.
The Dallas Mart consists of two primary buildings, each with atriums and many floors each. I like the Dallas show because of the abundance of ...
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Last February e-commerce company Shopify Inc. replaced the “Ottawa, Canada” dateline that began its press releases and earnings reports with a strange new one: “Internet, Everywhere.” The geographical shift came at the insistence of Shopify’s founder and chief executive officer, Tobi Lütke, who tends to view such matters through the prism of cold, hard logic. In May 2020, only a few months into the pandemic, he’d made the early, seemingly rash decision to...
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During this holiday season, does one want to tell their family and friends that they sell knock offs--or that they help Main Street? I'd vote for the latter. Yet, a new service is trying to sell knock offs and eat in to retailers' lunches.
For the last few years, retailers have been having a hard time of it: they are increasingly circumvented by the brands. With the advent of the e-commerce websites and social media, brands are pitching their wares directly to consumers and ...
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Retailers have had a difficult time in recent years, as brands have increasingly circumvented them. With the advent of e-commerce websites and social media, brands are pitching their wares directly to consumers and cutting out retailers.
I’ve sometimes wondered: What if the factory decides to do the same and cut out the brands? If the retailers don’t like it, how will the brands? Some businesses are now trying this. Services like Italic allow a consumer to bypass...
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Many brands are growing their DTC (D2C) channels, but a recent report by BMO Capital Markets suggests they may be a shooting themselves in the foot--which their retailers may be happy to hear. The report shares that wholesale is more profitable overall than selling direct.
A few things have enabled brands to grow their DTC aspirations:
Selling to customers via the brand's own e-commerce website.
Tracking customers using social media and ad networks (aka surveillance,
You can now more easily see updates from business friends. We've updated the Activity drop down to group related content. For example, we group news, reviews, and product-related updates together respectively.
In the example shown, on the left is the old version of the drop down and on the right is the updated version.
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We have exciting news: Retailers can now place wholesale orders via Bridge for 85 brands. If you are an authorized dealer, you can purchase from premium brands, including:
We 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 by me. In his book ...
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In the news each day, there are reports of price increases (inflation) that average 4%. When a product's price increases 4% or 45%, this often hurts a retailer. Reason: the retailer may not know about this price change till after it has sold the item. Therefore, the retailer sold the item at 45% less than what it should have. If the item is a special order and the retailer does not have it in stock, it may barley make a profit on the order.
Bridge's product sharing service helps ...
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I've watched brands use social media to do an end-run around retailers. A recent article from RetailDive substantiates this. Excerpt:
"75% of social media users said they increased their purchases from brands they follow... A 2021 study from NPD found that 51% of survey respondents said they bought items thanks to content in their Facebook and Instagram feeds."
Translation: 75% of shoppers bought more from brands directly--which is bad for retailers. The article ...
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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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Brands share their products with stores via the Smart Products marketing platform. Wouldn't it be helpful to see how those products are performing? Now you can. We added a new feature to help Smart Brands see how their products are performing. When a Smart Brand partner browses to a product in its Bridge account, it will now see a 'Product Performance' area. If you use Instagram, this feature may feel familiar. Instagram lets you view performance statistics for posts. We have brought ...
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