Absolutely, fall gatherings are all about warmth and nostalgia!🍁 To set the perfect table for a fall meal, try these tips:
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🍂Seasonal Decor: Think rich, earthy tones like burnt orange, deep reds, and golden yellows. Incorporate natural elements like mini pumpkins, pinecones, and autumn leaves. A cozy table runner or placemats in these colors can tie the look together.
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🖤Courtly Check: Add this pattern for a charming harvest motif, available in dinnerware, napkins, or even as a part of ...
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How online trends in the used car market parallel those in the wedding registry market. Online gift giving predicted to increase at the expense of in-store giving by 40% by 2030.
How online trends in the used car market parallel those in the wedding registry market. Online gift giving predicted to increase at the expense of in-store giving by 40% by 2030.
May 7, 2024
Jinjoo Lee in The Wall St. Journal shares how the used car market has improved in the last 20 years because much of it is now conducted online. When car buyers use the web, they are more likely to save money (saving about 2%), and dealers can, in theory, make more with dynamic pricing (about 2%)—thereby giving each party a win. Unlike 20 years ago, when we didn't have smartphones, today 95% of used car purchases start online. While 31% of used car purchases were completely in-person,...
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Add a personal touch to your table by decorating it with name cards, love notes, or flowers that express your affection for your loved ones. Then, choose a natural aesthetic for a welcoming and elegant appearance. Start with this naturally occurring placemat composed of exotic vines, which exudes a rustic vibe with its naturalistic color combinations. The extra beads that are expertly woven into the placemat provide character and depth to the table, and they work wonderfully with other layered ...
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Staff at manor department stores like Saks are finding success with Instagram and social media. The Information shares this:
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Tyler Bell was encouraging all her clients to “tag your bag.” Every time Bell, a Saks Fifth Avenue stylist in Troy, Mich., closed a sale, she asked the buyer to show off their purchase on Instagram and tag her account, @tyler.saks. Bell posts Saks inventory multiple times a day on Instagram Stories. Her 27,000 followers will...
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How partnerships can be used as a marketing tool to elevate a company's brand and reputation by associating with quality partners.
August 7, 2023
I’m at Sweetgreen, a salad-focused restaurant, and I spotted this sticker on the preparation window. Sweetgreen is promoting Sullivan Street Bakery. Why would it dare do that? I believe it’s because it benefits Sweetgreen: people use a brand’s name to quickly deduce information, such as quality and value. People know that Sullivan Street Bakery is good. And, even if they don’t know it, they know that a bakery provided it and that it’s not from some stale loaf....
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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
It was October 2021, and I had just finished my first in-person trends seminar since the pandemic impacted all industry shows. At the end of the image-packed program, an audience member raised her hand and challenged, “Do trends even matter anymore?”
It was a valid question. The pandemic had disrupted business, upended supply chains, transformed education, revealed vulnerabilities, altered priorities, and unexpectedly claimed many lives. The question was tinged with cynicism. Pent...
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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:
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.
There are many ways to enjoy wine. Tasting it may be your first thought, of course, but what about learning things about wine and all your favorite varieties? If you enjoy a good game night, consider trying some of these fun wine games as part of your next one and test your knowledge or just have some fun!
Test your wine knowledge with a wine tasting game. Learn to identify wine in terms of region, vintage, and more based on taste and smell, only. You get to improve your wine knowledge while ...
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How to let customers know that your store will call them to receive payment for their order.
January 17, 2023
Some Bridge merchants do not accept credit cards online. The merchant calls the customer (after they placed the order) to collect the customer's credit card information. For merchants that do not accept cards online, your Bridge has an updated feature that makes it easier for customers to expect a call from the store. A customer will now see a banner with a green telephone icon on the final checkout page. The banner displays this message:
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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When is the last time you received a Starbucks gift card? I’ve received them as holiday gifts, and I’ve given them to sales reps as thank you gifts. Starbucks gift cards, like their shops, are ubiquitous. They are almost as popular as gift cards from our nemesis: Amazon.com. Just about every month, a company offers me an Amazon gift card if I sign up for a service. WBGO, the local, Newark-based, non-profit radio station known for jazz, recently offered me an Amazon gift ...
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Adam Sigel, who heads up sales at Savanna Bee’s indie stores, recently showed me his ‘business card:’ a piece of metal with a QR code on it. I scanned Adam’s QR code and my phone offered to place his contact information in my phone’s address book. This not only saved me time. Behind the scenes, the software allows Adam to see who clicks on his scanned data—one can’t do that with a traditional business card.
I don’t own a car, yet I have a strange desire to read Dan Neil's car column each weekend in The Wall St. Journal. Why would someone who doesn’t own a car, won’t be buying one soon, and hasn’t owned one in 25 years read a car column? It's a mix of enjoying the design and technology of automobiles, wanting to know what Dwayne Johnson may be buying next, loving Dan’s witty writing style, and, confession, simply being 13-years old at heart. Cars are ...
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This week's Times shares that brides are increasingly asking for cash gifts. This trend pulls back the curtain on the underbelly of wedding gifts. Over the last 20 years, a trend emerged where a bride would ask for a traditional gift (i.e. a crystal champagne flute set, a fine china plate, etc.) but then redeem the credit for a television or vacuum. The stores that were especially adept at this were the big-box stores with a wide variety of offerings like Macy's and Target. They would use ...
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An article in today’s Times cites the high cost of acquiring customers, which ranges from $100 to $800. Excerpt:
“Estimates of an often-cited retail metric known as customer acquisition costs range from $100 to more than $800 per customer, said Daniel McCarthy, a professor at Emory University’s Goizueta School of Business, who has done extensive research in the field.”
Physical retail is one of the most expensive ways to acquire customers. An online ...
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Last February e-commerce company Shopify Inc. replaced the “Ottawa, Canada” dateline that began its press releases and earnings reports with a strange new one: “Internet, Everywhere.” The geographical shift came at the insistence of Shopify’s founder and chief executive officer, Tobi Lütke, who tends to view such matters through the prism of cold, hard logic. In May 2020, only a few months into the pandemic, he’d made the early, seemingly rash decision to...
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