How integrating a messaging service into our e-commerce platform can help us acquire new customers.
January 31, 2023
It takes a lot of people to build a bridge, but just two to tango. This applies to the analog world as well as the digital one. In the digital space, I'm using tango to refer to messaging between two people. I believe messaging is a service we can add to our offering to diversify how our company Shop Local grows.
Different Networks Require a Different Number of Users in a Group
Andrew Chen in The Cold Start Problem states that a key difference among network models is the required minimum ...
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This is to advise that we will continue to offer the FUSAIN pattern in 5 piece place settings, but will discontinue all other items as current quantities are sold off. The new ELITE 4 pc. Hostess Set will replace the current Fusain hostess set, and we will offer both in open stock and in a set.
The updated price lists have been uploaded to the site.
Our retailers recently told us that customers are calling and asking about non-existent brides, and brides are asking about non-existent registry gift lists (e.g. wedding registry lists, baby lists).
We investigated the issues and below is what we found.
What is Happening:
We found that many of these purchases are coming from registrants that open a ‘universal registry’ on websites such as Zola or MyRegistry. These universal registry services allow the registrant to add ...
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Our retailers recently told us that they were confused by strange registry orders. The stores are receiving gift registry orders on their sites but the retailer does not have a registry for the gift recipient at its store. Customers are calling and asking about non-existent brides, and brides are asking about non-existent registry gift lists (e.g. wedding registry lists, baby lists).
We investigated the issues and below is what we found.
What is Happening:
We found that many of...
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Noma, the world-famous Copenhagen restaurant, is closing to concentrate on e-commerce. Excerpt from the Times:
“Noma will become a full-time food laboratory, developing new dishes and products for its e-commerce operation, Noma Projects, and the dining rooms will be open only for periodic pop-ups.”
This change supports the breath and power of e-commerce, and portends coming changes for our retail industry. It’s not that one can’t eke out a ...
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How to view key wholesale information for your brands to save time and avoid errors when processing orders.
January 4, 2023
Your Bridge has a new feature: We've made it easier to access wholesale information for the products on your Bridge Store. Viewing an order's Details page displays wholesale information for products purchased by your customers.
Previously, when your store viewed a retail order's Details page the information displayed was limited to just details about the product’s brand.
With this update, the Order Details page includes:
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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More than 65% of brands surveyed by Bridge offer free shipping, while just 14% of indie stores do. Brands often charge just $118 to quality for free shipping, while stores charge $190 (a $72 difference). Where would you shop?
Bridge analyzed the websites for the top-40 selling brands in the tabletop and giftware industry. We assessed what promotions and discounts, such free shipping, brands offer. Bridge did this because a product's price, which is impacted by discounts, is often the leading ...
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Your Bridge Store has an updated feature: You can now more easily manage who subscribes to emails, including products newsletters and wedding reminders. You can now more quickly view subscribers, as well as add and remove them.
Previously, one would see all subscribers’ emails in one field, with emails separated by a comma. To add a subscriber, one typed the team member's email into this field. With this update, all the subscribers appear in a vertical list. To add a subscriber, ...
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Your Bridge has a new feature: You can now easily assign your business's POS and website software.
In the example shown, the store has selected Intuit: Quickbooks as their POS software. When assigning Intuit: Quickbooks, Bridge software shares that 59 other businesses also use this POS software.
The store has selected Shopify as their website software. By assigning Shopify, Bridge software notifies the store that 103 other businesses also use this website software.
...
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Your Bridge has a new Events page that makes it easier to view your store's recent sign ups and anniversaries.
In the example shown, we see the Registry Events page for a store.
The page shows:
Recent Weddings.
Recent Wedding Anniversaries.
The new page also has a "View email template" link under the registrants' names. This link opens a new email in your computer's native email program. The email is pre-populated with the registrant's names, email address, a link to ...
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We've added a new feature to your Bridge account: You can now easily see the product searches performed on your Bridge Store.
The Product Searches page shows the searches performed by customers on your Bridge Store. The page is broken down into two columns: 'top 100 found terms' and 'top 100 not found terms'. You can use these results to identify what customers want to find and what they are entering, which may include typos.
In the example shown, we see the product search ...
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We'll all be spending a lot of time in the kitchen over the holidays. Do you need a refresh of your kitchen tools and accessories assortment?
it's not too late to have Rösle in your store (kitchen!) this holiday season. Rösle products are in stock and shipping within 48 hours of placing an order.
Bridge members have seen great success with the kitchen line Rösle, which offers reliable, high-quality tools made in Germany.
Bridge has something that every store needs, but doesn’t really want: product data. We get stores to trust us that they need our product data for 64,000 products from 109 brands. They really don’t want the data—they want the sales from it. The data itself is worthless, but the sales from it are invaluable. Do you know who also has this issue? Funeral directors. Last week's Wall Street Journal shares that mortuaries are leveraging bonsai trees, setting up bouncy castles, ...
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Decanting wine is a popular practice for many wine lovers. It can improve the tasting experience but it can also ruin a wine. It is important to look at the type of wine and the type of decanting being done to determine the best course of action.
Determining if decanting a wine will be harmful to it can be done by looking at the vintage, the producer, the age/condition, and the grape variety. Some people like to decant every wine for hours on end while others decant wine to remove sediment. ...
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Join us in kicking off the Christmas season with our annual open house! Register for door prizes, sample some of our delicious gourmet foods, and take advantage of our special open house discount. We can't wait to see you!
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