Visit Glassworks and Cheeks and Feathers during the Annual Shadyside Sidewalk Sale, which takes place Wednesday, July 26th - Sunday, July 30th from 10 am to 5 pm each day. Head down to Walnut Street and it's side streets next week to find bargains. Shop your favorite stores and boutiques to find products at incredible discounts. Most local retail businesses will participate, offering up to 80% off regular retail! Glassworks and Cheeks and Feathers will offer the best deals of the year! Savvy ...
Read More
How a company's sales and growth can be affected by the message it conveys to customers.
July 18, 2023
Allbirds stock is down 95% since its November 2021 initial public offering. People may say the company launched the wrong products (did you buy one of their puffer jackets?) or tried to grow too quickly. I believe there is a larger reason: you can’t scale a company by leading with an environmental message—which is Allbirds’s pitch. Consumers rank saving the planet as one of their least pressing concerns when making a purchase. The leading factors consumers look for when ...
Read More
How to access your built-in marketing tools via the Marketing Manager page.
July 12, 2023
Your Shop Local Store has a new feature: We've made it easier to view and manage your marketing tools. Your account includes several built-in tools and programs, which can now be quickly accessed through the new Marketing Manager page.
The Marketing Manager page displays the following promotions in a table:
Offer Free Shipping.
Display a "Thank you for shopping local" banner on the checkout pages.
Your Shop Local Store has an updated feature: You can now more easily manage who subscribes to emails, including the customer service, sales, and product & data manager emails. You can now more quickly view, add, and remove subscribers.
Previously, one would see all subscribers’ emails in one field, with emails separated by a comma. To add a subscriber, one had to type the team member's email into this field. With this update, all of the subscribers appear in a vertical ...
Read More
How pre-populating information saves clients time and speeds them along a process.
June 30, 2023
Each April, I scramble to send my tax information to my accountant so I can file my taxes before April 15. Since my friends confide that they do the same, there are likely millions of people like us racing to prepare our taxes. What if there was a way to avoid this painful rush—and even the cost of it? The WSJ shares that Japan, New Zealand, and much of Europe get such relief. The countries prepare tax returns for their citizens using existing data, and the citizen just needs to review it,...
Read More
What we can learn about a company through its mission statement.
June 30, 2023
This past week, I read a mission statement from The Knot's corporate website (https://www.theknotww.com/). The statement included a paragraph and five principles. The paragraph describes what the parent company does. The statement says:
"We help couples around the world navigate and enjoy life’s biggest moments together. As a global company, our industry-leading websites, top-ranked mobile apps, and trusted resources provide the most sought-after information, connections, and ...
Read More
We are pleased to announce that Kalalou is ready to Sync products with authorized retailers. Syncing products is free for your business. There is no charge. (The brand pays for this service.)
Kalalou joins our stable of 110 premium brands that Sync products with 1,200+ fine indie stores.
View Kalalou's Synced products
View the 1,500+ products you can Sync from Kalalou here: kalalou.myshoplocal.com
View an example of a retailer's Store that is ...
Read More
How businesses keep customers coming back after they make a purchase.
June 8, 2023
Six Flags is updating its theme parks to encourage families to spend more time there and visit more often, according to this past weekend’s The Wall St. Journal. The theme park's president, Jeffrey Siebert, says that the nightly fireworks show is what the industry calls a “kiss good night.” After park-goers have spent the day spending, they perceive the show as a free, post-purchase gift with no strings attached. The fireworks thereby help the customer leave fulfilled and...
Read More
How to view private messages left by your customers.
June 5, 2023
Your Shop Local Store has a new feature: a customer can share a private message with your business when leaving a review on your Shop Local Store.
Previously, a customer could not share a private message when leaving a public review. The private message is only visible to your business.
In the example shown, we see a review notification email sent to a retailer. In the email, the store can see the customer's public review and private message. On the store's Reviews page, only the ...
Read More
Nice to see this sign at an indie store, The Art of Simple, in Seaside, Florida.
“You may not know this, but if you shop with Amazon.com, you are not supporting small local businesses. If you want Amazon to be the world’s only retailer, keep shopping online at Amazon.com.
If you enjoy shopping in our store, buy from us. We appreciate your support. Thank you.”
If I were asked, I’d recommend these tweaks to this:
How we can acquire new prospects by leveraging our existing network of customers.
June 2, 2023
In Andrew Chen’s book The Cold Start Problem, he breaks the network effect into three parts: engagement, acquisition, and economize. At Shop Local, we rely on the network effect and its three parts. I feel that we’re succeeding in terms of engagement but need improvement in acquisition.
Engagement
We use the 64,000 products in our Syncing service to engage 1,200 our retail clients. We email them new intros, price updates, archived items for these synced products. Once they ...
Read More
Shop Local will give you $250.00 when you mention your Shop Local service in your price list or catalog or on your business card.
Why use this promotion?
Retailers will be buying your products at the summer shows. You can make it pain-free for them to get your product online in seconds using your Syncing service.
FACT: Syncing is the fastest and easiest way to get your products on your stores' websites.
Sell 18% more. Retailers report selling up to 18% more
A shopper, Lisa Minor, shared this review regarding her experience on our Shop Local platform:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“The website was easy to use, and I was thrilled to be be able to shop online with a local store. I wish more businesses offered this kind of service.”
Ms. Minor made a purchase on Babcock Gifts, an indie retailer that has used our e-commerce software since 2015.
.................
Read 1,500+ reviews from Babcock Gifts customers: https://...
Read More