MIKASA’s powerhouse COUNTRYSIDE franchise continues its domination decades after their launches. Tapping into the zeitgeist of the times, the patterns’ staying power is testament to compelling classic design, line extensions, and passionate fans.
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IT’S BEEN 50 YEARS SINCE MIKASA’s FRENCH COUNTRYSIDE DEBUTED, the perfect panacea to a formal-dominated dinnerware domain. The scalloped, edged, and curved creamware provided the ideal ...
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In her new book ‘Quit,' Annie Duke shares that the best poker players only play 25% of the hands they are dealt, whereas others play 50%. Ms. Duke talks with Stewart Butterfield, the founder of a few startups, most recently Slack (which is an acronym, which I didn’t know). Slack wouldn’t have been born if Mr. Butterfield didn’t drop a video game company to start Slack. Likewise for Twitter which was born out of the failed blogging company Odeo. Ms. Duke's lesson: winners ...
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In the early 2000s, the board game Cranium became a hit. The game combined elements of Scrabble and Pictionary with the goal of helping more people enjoy playing a game. Richard Tait, who created Cranium and sold it to Hasbro in 2008 for $77.5m, passed away in July. Like Mr. Tait, I had been a paperboy, but he went beyond what I ever offered: he came up with a new service that sold breakfast sandwiches along his newspaper route. He increased profits and made customers happier. ...
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Bridge has updated your Bridge Shop's domain address. Your site's URL now includes "myshoplocal.com." If you look at the top of your account, you will see this domain in the web browser's URL field. Specifically, we changed the URL from [YourBusinessName].bridgecatalog.com to [YourBusinessName].myshoplocal.com.
While eating a slice of coal-fired pizza at Arturo’s in Soho yesterday, and getting an occasional whiff of Houston Street garbage, I had to admit: I was at a loss for insight to share with my coworkers this week. Each week, I send out a motivational message to my team that precedes a summary of what they accomplished. We call this report the Brick report. This would be my seventy-second Brick introduction: What else could I say--and would they miss it if there was not an introduction...
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I recently saw an advertisement for Windows 11 in Wired magazine. I thought: “Wow, finally something from Microsoft that someone can understand: a logical name for their software offering.” I recall a time when Microsoft had a confusing litany of software names including: NT, 98, 2000, Millennium (ME), Windows XP, and Vista--before finally relegating those clumsy names to the desktop recycle bin and adopting a simple, progressive number system. Apple has been naming its ...
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Jim Collins, in his book BE 2.0, explains how purpose and mission are important to companies. To help explain this, he uses the metaphor of crossing a mountain range and seeing a star on the horizon. Your purpose is to reach the spot on the horizon below the star. The current mission is climbing up the mountain you’re on. The next mission is climbing up the next mountain and so forth in order to get closer to the spot on the horizon. You will have many missions, and may never ...
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While I was down in Dallas evangelizing about Bridge, the Dallas Market Center’s software provider and sister company (called MarketTime) invited me to their offices for a meeting. The goal of the meeting was to explore teaming up to help brands and retailers speed products to market, as well as get a leg up on the competition.
The Dallas Mart consists of two primary buildings, each with atriums and many floors each. I like the Dallas show because of the abundance of ...
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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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Last week, a gift shop in Alabama signed up for Bridge and had a coaching call with Jordyn, our retailer coach. Within one day, the retailer had a Bridge Store offering 15k products and a full suite of online services to serve its customers. (See the store's Bridge account here: https://shealeighs.bridgecatalog.com)
I’m even amazed at what our software can do! Our software requires a lot of parts to come together: our tech team codes the software, our coaches call the stores...
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Vietri, a premium designer of Italian home goods and a member of Bridge, was featured in ‘Garden & Gun’ magazine. Using our service, Vietri syncs 1,000+ products with its retailers’ online stores in real-time.
In an advertisement the designer ran in the issue, we were happy to see that forty-seven percent of the indie stores it highlighted use Bridge. Of the 30 stores listed, 14 use Bridge Store to more easily sell Vietri.
While we’re hiring, some of our customers are still struggling within the retail environment. One client, Cathy Hulgan Designs, is closing because the new landlord wanted to double the rent and asked for a long-term lease. Cathy was a big proponent of ours. I am saddened by her store's closing. I’ll miss her.
I’ll note that her situation did bring to mind the merit of offering digital services and Bridge’s business model. Unlike a rental retail space in a strip mall, ...
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Clients choose Bridge because we bring together many of the benefits of selling on Amazon or using Shopify.
To understand this, it helps to first view the e-commerce provider spectrum. Marketplace sites are on the left, and solo sites are on the right. In the marketplace model, the store's logo (the seller's logo) is often nowhere to be seen. The seller is like a cog in the machine working for 'da man (aka Jeff Bezos). On the other end, there is the solo website for ...
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We offer a universal domain service (UDS) to retailers, brands, and sales reps. What does this service do? The universal domain service elevates your business' brand and may increase your Google ranking. Specifically, the service hides ("masks") the 'bridgecatalog' part of the website URL.
In the example shown, we Google two stores' names in Texas. The two stores both use Bridge Store to power their online business. The Ivy House does not use the universal domain service...
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Bridge's ability to process retail purchases using credit cards on Authorize.net was suspended today through approximately 4 pm EST. The issue is fixed now.
The reason for this is early this AM Authorize.net changed its processing location to Singapore and did not alert us. They updated their API domain to a Singapore-based IP. Since that city state is a hotbed for hacker activity, Bridge historically has blocked all traffic all incoming (and outgoing) traffic to Singapore as a ...
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April 20, 2019
April 20, 2019
Do you want to boost your Google ranking and better promote your store?
Try 'domain masking.' Domain masking is a service that Bridge offers that hides the 'bridgecatalog' part of your domain name. With domain masking, your website addresses will be 'cleaner,' you'll increase your Google ranking, and you'll enjoy other benefits.
As an example, Vieuxtemps (a gift shop in Charleston) uses domain masking. Its website urls are:
Please find our updated pricing for the Bridge service here. This updated pricing will take effect July 1st, 2018.
In some areas, Bridge is giving your business notably more. For example, in April of 2017 Bridge offered your business 10 Smart Brands for $59. In May of 2018, Bridge is providing your business with the product data from 40 Smart Brands for $49. In sum, you can receive 400 percent more product data yet pay 17% less.
If you are unsure how this affects what you'll pay ...
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December 6, 2017
December 6, 2017
Do you know what 'domain masking' is? It's a service that hides the 'bridgecatalog' part of your domain name and instead just shows your store name (e.g. http://www.shulans.com) Adding domain masking is very important to helping your store sell more.
Google ranks your website more highly when you have it. In addition, your store name will appear more prominently on 3rd-party sites like Myregistry.com. Please see the picture with this Chalk.
When a brides adds a link her registry with your store ...
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April 20, 2017
April 20, 2017
Curious how to make your Bridge more reflective of your store? Try domain masking. Domain masking is a process whereby we remove the "Bridge Catalog" text from your website address.
Domain masking has a few benefits: - Raises the profile of your business' name (and downplays Bridge's name). - Boosts your Google ranking.
In the example shown, Vieuxtemps uses domain masking. It's website pages appear in this format: