Brands and sales reps display the Shop Local decal in their showroom windows in Atlanta and Dallas. The decal lets authorized retailers know they can display their products online quickly.
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I see this situation all over the city. Amazon shipping companies are “warehousing” our public space. They put up cones and are permanently setup and conducting business. They use public space for private commercial use.
They’re like a pop-up store in a public parking spot. But unlike a physical store that is in a private building and pays commercial storefront taxes, these trucks don’t pay those retailer taxes. (Each year businesses in lower ...
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In September, brands raised their prices on 910 products, producing an average price increase of 9%. If a retailer didn’t make these changes, these price increases would cost their store 9%.
Thankfully, indie stores using Shop Local have the updated price for these 910 products. They don’t lose 9%. The stores receive the updated prices instantly via our Brand Syncing service.
How online calendars can help retailers manage and save time.
October 4, 2023
One of the main problems that businesses have is efficient use of time. A retailer (or brand or sales rep) seeks on a daily basis to manage their time and optimize results. (I was reminded of this while reading a The Wall St. Journal article about time management for the family.) Businesses use a variety of tools to manage and save time, including email, texting, and Zoom.
Shop Local helps businesses in their quest to save time. We offer businesses a variety of services to help ...
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You can determine the quality of a shopping platform by looking at reviews from customers who have used it. Below are excerpts from three reviews from shoppers who bought a gift using our software:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
"Thanks for making shopping fast, simple and convenient!!! Your website is easy and very manageable!"
~ Sue Maners in MO
Ms. Maners made a purchase at Babcock Gifts, an indie retailer in Tennessee that has used our e-commerce software since 2016.
We are pleased to announce Porto Brasil Tableware's products are ready for Syncing.
Porto Brasil Tableware joins our network of 115+ premium brands that Sync products with 1,300+ fine indie stores.
Porto Brasil Tableware is a contemporary company passionate about design. Founded 20 years ago in Porto Ferreira, Brazil, Porto Brasil was the first company in the world to work with digital printing on stoneware. Their stoneware body is sustainable and is made from an ...
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How to set interior designer pricing for your brands.
September 28, 2023
FOR BRANDS AND DISTRIBUTORS
Your Shop Local Store has a new feature: Interior designers can now view interior designer pricing for your brands and make purchases. If an interior designer is approved by your business, they can log in to your account and buy items at the wholesale designer price set by your business.
In the example shown, we see an interior designer logged in to BIA Cordon Bleu's account. The interior designer can place wholesale orders at the designer pricing set by ...
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Babcock Gifts celebrates its 50th birthday in 2024. The bridal registry and gift shop opened in 1972 as a partnership that included interior design. In 1974, with the exit of one partner, the store focused on antiques, gifts, and bridal registry. Over the next 42 years, there would be growth into two stores before downsizing to one. In 2016, ownership changed and the store moved one block down, where it continues to be a destination for bridal registry and gift-giving. With the constant doom and...
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Brands may consider using Shopify for their online operations. It’s important to note that brands can’t do many things with Shopify. A key Shopify problem for a brand is that the brand has to have separate “stores” for retail and wholesale customers. The reason is that Shopify doesn’t know what to charge the customer because it doesn’t know if it’s a general public shopper (that pays retail) or a retailer (that pays the wholesale price). &...
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What universal standards can teach us about simplicity regarding e-commerce platforms.
September 25, 2023
When Apple launched its new iPhones this month, one of its most noteworthy updates was replacing its Lightning charging cable with a USB-C. This was not a voluntary move or extension of Steve Jobs’s love of simplicity. Apple changed it because the European Union required them to, according to Ben Cohen in The Wall St. Journal. Now, just about every mobile phone in the world (forget just little ol’ Europe) will have one charging solution (USB-C).
Your Shop Local Store has a new feature: You can now make a product tax-exempt.
With this update, your store can decide whether or not to charge tax on a product. This is handy, for example, when selling most food online in New York State, where such purchases are tax-empt.
Please follow these steps to access this feature:
Log in to your Shop Local account.
Browse to the product you wish to make tax-exempt.
On the product's Details page, click "Edit product&
What the retail industry can learn from Google and Amazon teaming up on technology standards.
September 19, 2023
Google, Amazon, and an array of home appliance companies are teaming up to make it easier for you to dim your home’s lights and lock your front doors. They are adopting a standard called Matter that allows devices to communicate and work together, shares The Wall St. Journal. This allows a giant like Amazon, creator of Alexa devices and Ring doorbells, and Tuo, a small home device tech creator, to use the same platform yet keep their internal, proprietary code base. This standard is like a...
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Ginori 1735, a client using our Syncing service, was featured in a four-page Kering advertisement in the Times this past weekend. The ad promotes imagination and invites readers to enjoy a film.
We thank Kering and Ginori 1735 for supporting their indie retailers and their imaginations.
The Wall Street Journal gives us an update on Amazon’s plans, ranging from stores, hardware, health care, and logistics. The article shares that Amazon has closed all of its bookstores and 4-star stores.
Shop Local analyzed the websites for the top-20 selling brands in the tabletop and giftware industries. We assessed what discounts brands offer when one signs up for a newsletter.
Brand Study Findings:
Of the 20 brands, 5 (25%) offer a discount when one signs up for a newsletter.
For brands that offer a discount, the average discount is 15% off.
Some brands offer other promotions for signing up for a newsletter, including free shipping and a raffle entry.
How to view key performance statistics to determine how Shop Local is helping your business.
September 11, 2023
Your Shop Local Store has a new feature: We've added a new Performance Statistics page to your account. This page makes it easier to access your account's stats.
Previously, this page was titled "How Shop Local is Helping My Business?" Now, the page is titled "My Account's Performance Statistics."
For Retailers, the stats displayed on the Performance Statistics page include:
How competitive techniques can help lure clients and grow a network.
September 10, 2023
Andrew Chen shares in 'The Cold Start Problem' that many times, networks are competing in a zero-sum game. One network gets a customer to join their network and thereby not participate in another. For example, when a driver used Lyft instead of Uber, Uber, which Chen helped, lost. And it lost in two regards: Uber lost the revenue from the lost ride, and Lyft gained the revenue. Chen’s team was tasked with getting drivers to use all their time driving for Uber and thereby unraveling Lyft&...
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