Today’s Times shares that Amazon Prime members often spend twice as much compared to those that aren’t members. This led to me ponder: What if a first step to reducing Amazon’s monopolies is just canceling a $119/year ‘membership’? Prime may be Amazon’s strength—as well as its achilles. If we can find a way to undermine it, I believe one can save money and our communities.
Bitsy Sherlock, a sales rep for Werner Frank, helped her store and her brands on Friday.
Bitsy signed up SheaLeigh's, a gift and home goods shop in Alabama. Within a few minutes, the retailer had a live Bridge Store with 15,800+ products. Customers and registrants can shop for these products. Additionally, Google will rank the store higher due to these products. The store saved months of web development time and thousands of dollars in labor.
When it comes to gift registries, Bridge helps indie stores rank higher in Google than other players in the retail industry. In the example shown, we see four retailers using Bridge to rank on page 1 of Google. Two retailers beat The Knot, and four beat Walmart.
While our indie stores are just a fraction of the size of The Knot or Walmart, they outrank them because they use Bridge's technology. Bridge's software and network of websites offers advantages that bigger entities can't overcome ...
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Brands share their products with stores via the Smart Products marketing platform. Wouldn't it be helpful to see how those products are performing? Now you can. We added a new feature to help Smart Brands see how their products are performing. When a Smart Brand partner browses to a product in its Bridge account, it will now see a 'Product Performance' area. If you use Instagram, this feature may feel familiar. Instagram lets you view performance statistics for posts. We have brought ...
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Pat Hensley, a sales rep for Ryan Associates, helped her store and her brands this morning.
Pat signed up Canterbury Court, a gift and antique shop in Texas. By just spending a few minutes, the retailer has a live Bridge Store with 1,800+ products. Customers and brides-to-be can shop these products. Google will rank the store higher due to these products. The store saved months of web development time and thousands of dollars in labor.
Bridge is helping indie stores compete against the big-box stores and big-money players.
Bridge will help more than 700 indie stores service 7,000 registries this year. Collectively, we’re moving millions of dollars in sales from big players to small stores and their communities.
Proof of this is when we see a bride registered at five stores and 40% of them are Bridge Store clients. The bride lists these registry choices:
Today’s Times reports on the recovery of the wedding industry—a topic dear to our hearts since Bridge has helped 50k couples with their gift registries.
Zola has added a "Home Store" tab to its site. The goal: become an online retailer that does it all...oh, and maybe does gift registries, too. Notably, this a departure from its original, registry-focused mission statement. Initially, Zola told brands that indie store gift registry services were not servicing out of the way towns and that by opening Zola, the brand would reach brides in remote parts of, say, Oklahoma. Zola didn't say that it was simply selling ...
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Bridge has updated your gift registry software to make it easier for registrants and their friends to view product pictures. When a product displays more images, shoppers are more likely to purchase it. With this updated feature, your registries should convince more shoppers to make purchases.
Here is how the feature works: When a product has more than one photograph, a link will appear over the product's picture displaying the number of photographs available. In the example shown, we ...
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Our indie retailers are being hunted by four major forces:
Amazon
Big-box stores
Brands (selling direct)
Zola
While we've known about Amazon and big-box stores for some time, they are becoming more sophisticated. Amazon is so powerful now that it's the focus of anti-trust inquiries by the government. Big-box stores are spending millions on their digital operations.
Bridge's goal is to give indie stores great software that reverses the gains being made by these forces.
...
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A customer emailed one of our client's this morning. The customer sent the email to praise the store's marketing effort. That marketing effort was designed and is managed by: Bridge. It required no effort by the store.
How the marketing works:
A customer buys a registry gift for a couple.
Approximately a year later, the Bridge software emails the customer on the couple's wedding anniversary. The email reminds the customers that it is the couple's anniversary.  
This drawing shows how the Smart Products service speeds products to a retailer’s website. A brand traditionally has to 'break' its website contents down into pieces (product data and images), and then share this with the store piecemeal via Dropbox or another file-sharing service. Bridge's service helps brands and stores skip these time-consuming and expensive steps.
In the example shown, the retailer Cook's Station wishes to add Joseph Joseph products to its website. Without ...
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If you asked me what I would change from my wedding day 25 years ago, I'd say I wish I'd had a fall wedding. The cooler temperatures, the beautiful warm colors, smores by the fire pit...all of it adds up to the perfect wedding atmosphere. Our fall brides at Amelia's have gorgeous weddings planned and I can't wait! Make sure to check out their registries...their showers are right around the corner!
Kaylyn Cogburn
Holly Key
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Part of my job is to review registry software. I ensure that it works well for retailers, registrants, and gift-givers (family and friends). I also assess whether it offers good value (price vs results).
A retailer recently shared with me that it uses the service MyRegistry.com. I reviewed the retailer's site and how a customer would make a registry purchase via MyRegistry.com. For privacy purposes, I changed the name of the store in the screenshots shown.
VIETRI AND BRIDGE PARTNER TO HELP INDEPENDENT STORES
Retailers Can Receive $150 For Joining Bridge Network
July 15, 2020
NEW YORK, NY – VIETRI, known as the premium importer of luxury tabletop goods from Italy, has launched a new program to help its independent specialty retailers online and in-store. VIETRI has agreed to offer its authorized retailers a credit of $150 towards future purchases by opening a free account with the e-commerce community ...
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If you are shopping one of our bridal registries and don't see what you are looking for PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE call our store for more options. Most of our brides have additional items in store that are not listed online. We would love to help you over the phone or in person.
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