What Crocs can teach us about gaining new customers and keeping them happy.
May 15, 2023
About 15 years ago, I bought a pair of Crocs sandals in Myrtle Beach, SC. Not only were they hot pink, but the insole was traffic cone orange. My buddies hated them, but oddly others loved them. The sandals were affordable (maybe $20), comfortable, and a conversation starter.
According to last week’s The New York Times' profile on Crocs, I’m one of tens of millions of happy Crocs owners. This happiness is profitable:
Shop Local’s Syncing service instantly shows new products in a retailer’s Online Store. The service is free for the retailer. The brands pay for the Syncing service.
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 click “download”
Before May 31, 2023, send an email to your retailers inviting them to join you on Shop Local's e-commerce platform. We’ve written for you a sample email template you can send to them. Please find that template below. You can copy this template and send it using your email program (Outlook, MailChimp, etc.).
When you send your email, please BCC [email protected] or forward it after you send it.
How to save time when navigating between orders placed on your Shop Local Store.
April 4, 2023
Your Online Store has a new feature: We've made it easier to navigate between orders placed on your Online Store. The Order Details page now has forward and backward arrows so you can navigate between orders with one click.
Previously, to see another order, a merchant had to click on the back arrow in the browser, find the order it wished to view, and then click it. The merchant would repeat these steps every time it wished to view a different order.
How to view all of a registry's gift givers on one page.
March 29, 2023
Your Online Store has a new feature: We've made it easier for you and your registrants to view information about a registry's gift givers. There is now a dedicated Gift Givers page that displays purchases grouped by the gift giver.
Traditionally, orders are organized by date. This page groups orders by the gift giver. The page outputs a registry’s gift givers’ emails and addresses on one page making it handy to manage thank you notes.
How to save time when accessing popular product-related services and pages.
March 27, 2023
Your Online Store has a new feature: We've made it easier to access important product-related services and content. This feature reduces the number of clicks needed to perform actions and access pages.
In the Master Bar of your Store, there is now a Products icon. This icon’s drop down includes many of the popular product-related services your business likely uses. Previously, you would need to visit the Management home page to view many of these links.
We're happy to see five brands promote Bridge Shop Local in Tableware Today's April/May 2023 issue.
The brands promoting Bridge Shop Local include:
Bordhallo Pinheiro
Carmel Ceramica
Mary Jurek
Pampa Bay
Vista Alegre
In the advertisement, the brand displays either Bridge’s ‘B’ or our ShopLocal.org logo.
A brand shows the logos so that retailers know they can easily sell the products shown. When a brand offers our Brand Syncing service, a retailer ...
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How to connect with or invite the sales reps assigned to your brands to sell more and quickly access their contact information.
March 20, 2023
Your Online Store has an updated feature: you can now more easily connect with your sales reps.
On a brand's home page, you can invite your sales rep to join you on the Shop Local platform. Your store can also edit or remove a sales rep assigned to a brand.
Connecting with your sales reps helps your store contact the right rep more quickly, sell more products, and work more efficiently.
How to update your retail settings on the Online Store tab.
March 16, 2023
Your Shop Local Store has a new feature: it's now easier to access settings for your Online Store. We've moved all of your Online Store settings to their own tab in your Business Profile. Previously, these settings were combined with other information on your Profile Home tab.
With this update, your store can easily see just your Online Store settings.
The Wall St. Journal reports that Barnes & Noble has updated its subscription discount program. Previously, it had one tier that was $25/year. Now, Barnes & Noble has a two-tier system. There is a free program that offers rebates based on what you spend, and a $40/year program that gives you rebates plus more discounts and some perks at its cafes.
The new memberships are meant to help the bookseller better compete with Amazon's Prime and Walmart+.
How to take a tour of important navigation features on your Shop Local site.
February 15, 2023
Your Online Store has a new feature: Using blue boxes, we have created a tour to guide you through the software's important navigation features. Taking this tour will help you save time and better utilize your software.
The tour explains these links:
Home Page
Dashboard
Activity
Your Orders
Wholesale
Your Inbox
Account Management
Syncing
Add
Display Mode
Your Profile
Please follow these steps to access the navigation tour:
When I bought a gift at Sugarboo & Co., the store placed this coupon in my shopping bag. I like this strategy. I saved this coupon and left it on my countertop. That’s good for the store.
Our Store software could do something similar. It could send to customers a coupon in their digital receipts. For example, let’s imagine a person makes a retail purchase off your online Store. The customer could receive a coupon in their purchase ...
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We're happy to see five brands promote Bridge Shop Local in Tableware Today's February/March 2023 issue.
The brands promoting Bridge Shop Local include:
Bordhallo Pinheiro
Carmel Ceramica
Mary Jurek
Pampa Bay
Vista Alegre
In the advertisement, the brand displays either Bridge’s ‘B’ or our ShopLocal.org logo.
A brand shows the logos so that retailers know they can easily sell the products shown. When a brand offers our Product Syncing service, a ...
Read More
How having the right defaults makes decisions easier for clients and helps them be more successful.
January 27, 2023
When 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. Similarly, the right defaults ...
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In the book The Cold Start Problem, Andrew Chen says that the 'network effect’ is really three effects:
The acquisition effect
The engagement effect
The monetization effect
In the beginning, a business seeking to build a network has to concentrate on acquiring users, even if they are non-paying. Companies often give away the service, especially software companies, and we can see that with Facebook, Slack, TikTok, and many others. Bridge didn’t do ...
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The Times' magazine recently reviewed the book summarizing service Blinkist. Blinkest claims to give members $89,000 in value (the combined value of books offered) for $8/month. That's a great deal for readers.
A great deal for retailers: Bridge gives retailers $65k in value for $0 month. Bridge offers approved retailers up to 65,000 products from 109 premium brands for $0 per month. We estimate that each synced product to their online store saves them $1 and three minutes in labor...
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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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Whenever I visit my 76-year-old mom in Myrtle Beach, SC, she picks me up and the oldies station is playing in her car. I’ve tried changing that dial, and one has a better chance of outmaneuvering tennis star Daniil Medvedev. I imagine the oldies music brings her back to her youth. I read a study that people’s favorite song is often when they were 17 years old. That’s right: the 'best songs’ may not be the best songs but rather simply be what you heard in ...
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