A retail client recently decided they'd like to delete some past wedding registries to "save money." This raises the question, "Does deleting old registries save money?" We assessed the question and found that deleting old registries likely doesn’t save a retailer money. The reason is that it costs more to replicate our automated marketing efforts with more costly manual efforts.
How to quickly find and navigate to popular registry-related services.
August 28, 2023
Your Shop Local Store has a new feature: We've made it easier to access important registry-related services and content. This feature reduces the number of clicks needed to perform actions and access pages.
In the Master Bar of your Store, there is now a Registry icon. This icon’s drop-down includes many of the popular registry-related services your business likely uses. Previously, you would need to visit the Management Home page to view many of these links.
I was inspired to read that what we do today as a software company can be traced back 42,000 years to a bone in a South African cave. I realized this after reading The Wall St. Journal’s review of ‘Empire of the Sum,’ a book about pocket calculators.
Here’s the lineage: We’re in the software business, which is a relative of the computer business, which is a relative of the pocket calculator business (just ask Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, who ...
Read More
Your registry service has built in email campaigns for each gift registry list. These campaigns promote your store in an automated and affordable manner. The campaigns often cost under $.0.42 per recipient—about half of what other email marketing campaigns cost.
Details
Your software sends out an anniversary reminder email to a customer that gave a gift for that registry.
Cost Per Email Sent
Let’s assume that a registry received 100 purchases. ...
Read More
How big data, filters, and search engines can help us create a better experience for our members.
May 26, 2023
Apple announced last month that it's launching a new classical music app. What’s novel about the Apple Music Classical app is how it lets music fans more easily search thousands of variations of the same song. For example, let’s say you want to find a Johann Sebastian Bach song. Over the past 300 years, many musicians have done ‘covers’ of his works, and there are variations by conductor, music, year, etc., thereby producing thousands of variations. Existing software ...
Read More
We're happy to see four brands promote Bridge's Shop Local platform in Tableware Today's June/July 2023 issue.
The brands promoting Shop Local include:
Bordhallo Pinheiro
Carmel Ceramica
Mary Jurek
Vista Alegre
In the advertisement, the brand displays our ShopLocal.org logo.
A brand shows the logo so that retailers know they can easily sell the products shown. When a brand offers our Brand Syncing service, a retailer can instantly display the brand's entire product ...
Read More
Before May 31, 2023, send an email to your retailers inviting them to join you on Shop Local's e-commerce platform. We’ve written for you a sample email template you can send to them. Please find that template below. You can copy this template and send it using your email program (Outlook, MailChimp, etc.).
When you send your email, please BCC [email protected] or forward it after you send it.
How to view all of a registry's gift givers on one page.
March 29, 2023
Your Online Store has a new feature: We've made it easier for you and your registrants to view information about a registry's gift givers. There is now a dedicated Gift Givers page that displays purchases grouped by the gift giver.
Traditionally, orders are organized by date. This page groups orders by the gift giver. The page outputs a registry’s gift givers’ emails and addresses on one page making it handy to manage thank you notes.
We're happy to see five brands promote Bridge Shop Local in Tableware Today's April/May 2023 issue.
The brands promoting Bridge Shop Local include:
Bordhallo Pinheiro
Carmel Ceramica
Mary Jurek
Pampa Bay
Vista Alegre
In the advertisement, the brand displays either Bridge’s ‘B’ or our ShopLocal.org logo.
A brand shows the logos so that retailers know they can easily sell the products shown. When a brand offers our Brand Syncing service, a retailer ...
Read More
I was happy to see Tableware Today magazine share our experiences and lessons regarding the power of free shipping.
You're invited to read the article below:
.........................
THE LAST WORD
FREE SHIPPING PAYS OFF
by JASON SOLAREK
Most indie stores don’t have the technical ability or people power to track pricing and offer discounts like free shipping. Indie stores need this information or they’ll be left behind. This information can make a difference: in ...
Read More
How to navigate between images for products on a registry list.
March 1, 2023
Your Bridge Shop Local Store has an updated feature: it's now easier to view products' images and browse to other related images on a registry list.
In the example shown, we see a registry list at The Ivy House, a fine china store in Dallas. In the product image thumbnail, we can see the number of pictures that correspond to the product. At the top-right of the image thumbnail, one can click the enlarge icon to open the product image modal.
In the product image modal, we can see the new ...
Read More
I'm giving you a $200 finder's fee when you refer a store.
When you refer a store, the store will receive $268. It will receive $100 towards a wholesale order with your brand and a $168 credit towards their registry service with us. (My company is paying the $100 wholesale order credit.)
This offer is good through May 1, 2023.
Summary: you give a store $268 and you get $200. (Bridge ...
Read More
How we can celebrate indie stores and promote sales by hosting a Save Local event.
February 23, 2023
When one thinks of shopping locally, some consider it an act of charity. One may pay more and get less selection. That’s not a recipe for success. In contrast, the world’s most successful retailers, Walmart and Amazon, operate on just the opposite principles: low prices and massive selection. When I’m in Walmart's Panama City Beach location, it’s so massive I feel like I’m in the Giants' stadium. Amazon sells 12m items on its website (350m if you count the third-...
Read More
How we can bring clients together to build a larger network.
February 4, 2023
Economist Bent Flyvbjerg encourages us to find our “Lego” in his new book “How Big Things Get Done.” Mr. Flyvbjerg, whose new book is reviewed by Ben Cohen in this week’s The Wall Street Journal, says that most large projects that are completed successfully use a modular approach. Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal:
“That’s the question every project leader should ask: What is the small thing we can assemble in large numbers into a big ...
Read More
We're happy to see five brands promote Bridge Shop Local in Tableware Today's February/March 2023 issue.
The brands promoting Bridge Shop Local include:
Bordhallo Pinheiro
Carmel Ceramica
Mary Jurek
Pampa Bay
Vista Alegre
In the advertisement, the brand displays either Bridge’s ‘B’ or our ShopLocal.org logo.
A brand shows the logos so that retailers know they can easily sell the products shown. When a brand offers our Product Syncing service, a ...
Read More
How setting goals for our new members can help them be more successful.
January 31, 2023
When growing our network, we consider what it takes to keep existing members and grow into other industries. Andrew Chen in The Cold Start Problem reports that Facebook famously wanted a user to get 10 friends in a week because then the person would likely use the service. Similarly, Slack said users with about 10 connections tend to become active users. My company currently doesn’t have such new user benchmarks and we need to develop them.
Adding New Retail Members to the Product...
Read More