Tim DeVine promotes Bridge sales program in HFN magazine
Tim DeVine, founder of tableware distributor DeVine Corporation, says in HFN magazine that the Bridge sales program produces immediate sales results for retailers that participate.
We are always seeking for improved ways to explain the Bridge luxury sales service. It occurred to me that for a retailer joining the Bridge it is like hiring 20 people, but only paying for one. 20 brands work to maintain inventory and images, yet the retailer incurs no additional cost. It only pays for this 'employee' if a sale is made. Currently, the Bridge can stock 12,000 products on a retailer's website, saving it $27k+ and 46+ weeks of labor.
A brand asked me today a few questions about the Bridge. My response is below.
How will the brand make more money with the Bridge? 1) A brand makes money by making more online sales via retailers' websites. Instead of a retailer having few items from a brand for sale on its site, the retailer will have 100s or 1,000s. The home goods industry is very reliant on bridal and gift registries. If a brand is not on a retailer's website, it's not on the bridal registry, and sales ...
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September 12, 2010
September 12, 2010
Sales update
In 2008, the Bridge helped retailers sell $49,000+ worth of goods In 2009, the Bridge helped retailers sell $62,000+. This year, as of today, the Bridge as helped retailers sell $79,000+. With four months left in the year, we may well reach $120,000. As such, this year the Bridge may double the value it provides to retailers.
Please note: these numbers above only include online sales, and not orders due to the Bridge but placed via telephone. As such, the total sales attributable to the ...
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July 19, 2010
July 19, 2010
Using your website to track online sales goals for stores and sales reps
This article below from the Wall St. Journal last week explains a new tool from Mint.com (owned by the giant Intuit). The tool lets people set savings and spending goals on the website mint.com, a massively powerful and widely used online financial site. What if the same could be done for brands and retailers, so a store could set sales goals for their physical store on a brand's website? The brand's website would give the ...
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December 28, 2009
December 28, 2009
Wall St. Journal: As Stores Sputter, Sales Sizzle Online
As Stores Sputter, Sales Sizzle Online Dec. 15 Sets Record for Web-Site Revenue; Sears, Macy's,Other Big Retailers Lure Internet Shoppers By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER
A holiday season of Web price wars and aggressive online promotions by store-based retailers is leaving e-commerce a larger force in American retail.
While sales conducted at brick-and mortar stores are about flat this season compared with 2008, online retailing grew 4% from the ...
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December 1, 2009
December 1, 2009
CNN: Cyber Monday sales rose 14% this year
From CNN.com today:
Cyber Monday: A lot of clicking and shopping
Report says sales rose 14% over last year and shoppers on average spent more online than they did on Black Friday.
By Parija B. Kavilanz, CNNMoney.com senior writer Last Updated: December 1, 2009: 10:27 AM ET NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Did Cyber Monday outshine Black Friday this year?
Early reports suggest that Americans shopped more enthusiastically online for holiday bargains than they did in ...
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August 26, 2009
August 26, 2009
Our clients' sales are up +22% while the industry is down -35%
Sales for the overall home goods industry are down by 35%, but for our Bridge partners they are up. Please see the accompanying chart. This shows a distributor's average retailer sales. Most of the distributor's retailers are down 35%, whereas our Bridge retailers' sales are up from 22% to 98%. These numbers are based on the first seven months of 2008 vs. the first seven months of 2009.
About the Solarek Studio Bridge Solarek Studio ...
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December 21, 2008
December 21, 2008
Pizza Hut sells more than $1 billion in pizzas online
The Ad Age excerpt below states that Pizza Hut has sold more $1 billion in pizzas online. All those college kids that buy pizza online will soon move on to to buying other items online, such as home goods. What can we learn from Pizza Hut's tactics?
"Pizza Hut, which recently crossed the $1 billion benchmark in online sales, is launching a Facebook application that allows fans to place orders without leaving their profiles. Although online ...
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November 30, 2008
November 30, 2008
2008 Online Sales to Grow 12% Over 2007
From Advertising Age magazine regarding online sales:
Overall retail sales are projected to grow only 2.2% by the National Retail Federation, making online growth projections of 12% downright cheery.
Deloitte's annual holiday survey also presents several compelling reasons to maintain spending online. The category is ranked by consumers as the No. 2 shopping destination this year behind discount department stores. A full 21% of consumers plan to shop ...
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November 26, 2007
November 26, 2007
Cyber Monday's Impact on Tableware Websites
Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving that is the online equivalent of Black Friday, is discussed in today's NY Post and New York Times (links to both are below). Just as online sales will rise in other industries, this day/week should be give our industry a bump.
My name is Jason Solarek, and I met you at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens this past spring at an antique garden furniture show. I was there with some ...
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My name is Jason Solarek, and I met you at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens this past spring at an antique garden furniture show. I was there with some ...
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September 26, 2007
September 26, 2007
Lighting the Way: How to Compete with Internet-Only Lighting Stores
Nancy Meyer, HFN's senior editor for furniture and lighting, writes in this week's issue that brick and mortar lighting retailers should better compete with retailers that sell exclusively online. She proposes that brick and mortar retailers compete by offering better serviceβand hoping manufactures support MSRP policies. I would add to this that the physical retailer can join the online retailer by creating a website. Although ...
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September 17, 2007
September 17, 2007
Brides Save Online
In yesterday's Sunday New York Times, Michael C. Fina (MCF) advertised its bridal registry in an attractive color circular. For registry couples that meet certain spending benchmarks, MCF offers gifts such as a flat-screen TV. If all the registry items are purchased, there is a 15% discount. Since I've heard that 90%+ of online tabletop sales are made through registries, this additional push by MCF should be paying off with some nice online sales.
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September 13, 2007
September 13, 2007
Amazon Rules the Online Tabletop Jungle
In HFN's September 10th issue, the magazine lists the top 5 selling dinnerware patterns (in the category of casual and housewares dinnerware patterns). I did a search for each of these patterns in Google. Which company do you think came up first for 3 out of these 5 patterns? Not Macy's. Not Wal-mart. The winner: Amazon.com. Amazon.com doesn't show up at the tabletop shows or even have a physical store.
So, why is our industry letting this player get all ...
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September 12, 2007
September 12, 2007
The Google-mart Effect
There is a nice article in the September 10th, 2007 issue of HFN by Allison Zisko. (Unfortunately at the time of this post they did not have this article online, otherwise I'd link to it.) I liked her term "better casual" to describe what consumers are buying. I agree the bridal market needs to rediscover tabletop...as does the general marketplace.
It's also interesting how many Americans are doing their shopping at Wal-mart. If you're a fine china brand and you don't want ...
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September 11, 2007
September 11, 2007
What the Tableware Industry Can Learn From Rupert Murdoch's Takeover of the Wall Street Journal
This past August Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. captured the crown jewel of the publishing word by purchasing The Wall Street Journal from the Bancroft family for $5 billion. What does this event have to do with us in the tabletop industry? I propose that there is a lot the industry can learn from Murdoch's coup. The main lesson is that investing in technology-and in particular online operations-is ...
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