Our retailers recently told us that customers are calling and asking about non-existent brides, and brides are asking about non-existent registry gift lists (e.g. wedding registry lists, baby lists).
We investigated the issues and below is what we found.
What is Happening:
We found that many of these purchases are coming from registrants that open a ‘universal registry’ on websites such as Zola or MyRegistry. These universal registry services allow the registrant to add ...
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Our retailers recently told us that they were confused by strange registry orders. The stores are receiving gift registry orders on their sites but the retailer does not have a registry for the gift recipient at its store. Customers are calling and asking about non-existent brides, and brides are asking about non-existent registry gift lists (e.g. wedding registry lists, baby lists).
We investigated the issues and below is what we found.
What is Happening:
We found that many of...
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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.)
Summary: you give a store $268 and you get $200. (Bridge covers the $468.)
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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Your Bridge has a new feature: We've made it easier to navigate to different pages of your Bridge site with search shortcuts. Searching for a keyword in the gray search bar at the top of your account populates a shortcut button that is linked to a page related to that keyword.
Previously, one would have browsed the site's navigation to find what they wished to view. With this update, one can use the search field to get to the desired content more quickly.
Your Bridge has a new feature: We've made it easier to navigate between registry lists. A Registry list now has forward and backward arrows so you can navigate to nearby registries with one click.
Previously, to see another registry list a merchant had to click on the back arrow in the browser, find the registry it wished to view, and then click it. The merchant would repeat these steps every time it wished to view a different registry list.
When we brainstorm about making Bridge better, we want to turn over every stone. We explore many avenues, from increasing collaboration to lowering product prices to enhancing marketing. What if an improvement was right in front of us—constant to all of these concepts? Regardless of what feature we offer, there is one constant: navigation. Navigation is fundamental to allowing members to easily find what they need—and discover what they didn’t know they needed.
Google is often considered the first stop when searching for information. Looking for a product? You'll likely head to Amazon.com, where due to its 350m product listings, 25% of purchases reportedly start. Facebook will be your go-to for finding friends and family due to its 2b profiles of people. Airbnb lets you search 5.6m places to stay. These businesses are likely your choice because people want a massive selection when conducting a search. Many of the world's most ...
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We are so thrilled that you have chosen to support local by creating a bridal registry or by purchasing a gift from one of our registries! If you have any questions, please give us a call at 662-624-8385.
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Bridge helps 1,000 indie stores offer gift registries. We've handled 70,000 registries. One trend we've noticed over the year is The Knot, a leading wedding website provider, is minimizing sales opportunities for indie stores. The Knot has created partnerships with big-box players, including Crate & Barrel, Macy's, Bloomingdale's, and Amazon, and relegated the indie stores to the bottom of the bride's page.
In this example, we see the indie stores displayed at the very bottom ...
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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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Bridge has added a new feature to your store's wedding registry service. We have added checklists to each registry.
These checklists will help your store:
Save time.
Sell more gifts.
Make customers happier.
Details
Bridge has given each of your wedding registries two checklists:
Your store receives an internal, private checklist for each registry. The registrant can’t access this.
The registrant receives their own checklist. You can also
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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We've added a new feature to your Bridge: each of your registries now has a unique QR code. You, your registrants, and gift-givers can use these codes to quickly access registries and shop.
In the example shown, we see a wedding registry for Melly Jones & Jason Johnson at the Luxury Gift Shop. This registry has a unique QR code. The store can print this QR code and place it in a display in the store. When a customer (or staff member) in the store wants to access the ...
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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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I think that Zola, an online provider of gift registries, may be harming local stores. Zola allows brides to pick things from any site, such as an indie store’s gift registry. Zola may then encourage the registrant to bypass that local store and use those gift funds with Zola. This is an issue because Zola has handled more than 650,000 registries, and its revenue is estimated to be $130m. Millions of dollars may have been diverted away from indie, brick-and-mortar stores to Zola&rsquo...
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Your Bridge has a new feature: you can now easily assign an order to a registry. This update solves the issue of a customer that buys a registry gift but not from the registry list. For example, a customer may buy something the registrant didn't request, or the customer may browse off the registry list and then buy an item. With this update, you can edit the order and assign the gift to any registry list.
In the example, we see an order that Robert Smith placed. Let's imagine that this ...
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