Add Bridge Store & Smart Products to Online Retail Business
How Can Your Retail Store Start Using Bridge?
3 Choices for Integration
| Key | Choice A | Choice B | Choice C |
|---|---|---|---|
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| Bridge handles it all for you You use our Bridge Store and Smart Product data |
Hybrid You use your site and our Bridge Store and Bridge Smart Product data |
Use your own site You use your store and Bridge Smart Product data |
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Bridge Store
+
Bridge Smart Products
You use Bridge Store as your primary website. You can customize the design and content in your Bridge Store and gift registry. You can choose to sync with Smart Products. In addition to Smart Products, you can add any products that you wish to your Bridge Store. |
Your 3rd-Party Website
+
Bridge Store
+
Bridge Smart Products
You keep your existing website and add links to the pages and services on your Bridge Store that you want to use. For example, you add links on your site such as Gift Registry that lead to your Bridge gift registry. |
Your 3rd-Party Store
+
Bridge Smart Products
Use our data stream to fill your store with Smart Products. With this option, you'll be copying our data so your website will look exactly like your current e-commerce site. You control how your registry looks as well. |
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| Examples: |
Ivy House P.S. The Letter Persnickety Pieces Of Eight Vieuxtemps |
B.C. Clark Babcock Gifts Breed & Co. Fincher & Ozment Jewelers Friend and Co. |
Goldsmith Cardel Sasha Nicholas |
| Time to Setup: | Instant |
1 hour or less
» View support page |
Few weeks
» View support page |
| Setup Cost: | Free | Free or low-cost depending on service used to administer your site | Fee that your web person will charge |
| Bridge Software Updates: | Free & instant | Free & instant | Depends on your web team |
| Ideal for: |
Stores wanting a new website
Stores with no existing website |
Stores with an existing website
(such as Squarespace, Weebly, Shopify, etc.) |
Store with an advanced e-commerce website (e.g. major store) |
| Choice A | |
|---|---|
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Bridge handles it all for you You use our Bridge Store and Smart Product data |
|
|
Bridge Store
+
Bridge Smart Products
You use Bridge Store as your primary website. You can customize the design and content in your Bridge Store and gift registry. You can choose to sync with Smart Products. In addition to Smart Products, you can add any products that you wish to your Bridge Store. |
|
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Example Websites: P.S. The Letter Persnickety Vieuxtemps |
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| Instant Setup | |
| No Setup Cost | |
| Free & Instant Software Updates | |
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Ideal for: Stores wanting a new website Stores with no existing website |
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| Choice B | |
|---|---|
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Hybrid You use your site and our Bridge Store and Bridge product data |
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Your 3rd-Party Website
+
Bridge Store
+
Bridge Smart Products
You keep your existing website and add links to the pages and services on your Bridge Store that you want to use. For example, you add links on your site such as Gift Registry that lead to your Bridge gift registry. |
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Example Websites: Bailey's B.C. Clark Breed & Co. |
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1 hour or less time to setup
» View support page |
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| Free or low-cost setup depending on service used to administer your site | |
| Free & Instant Software Updates | |
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Ideal for: Stores with an existing website (such as Squarespace, Weebly, Shopify, etc.) |
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| Choice C | |
|---|---|
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Use your own site
You use your store and Bridge Smart Product data |
|
|
Your 3rd-Party Store
+
Bridge Smart Products
Use our data stream to fill your store with Smart Products. With this option, you'll be copying our data so your website will look exactly like your current e-commerce site. You control how your registry looks as well. |
|
|
Example Websites: Goldsmith Cardel Sasha Nicholas |
|
|
Few weeks to setup
» View support page |
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| Setup fee that your web person will charge | |
| Software updates depends on your web team | |
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Ideal for: Store with an advanced e-commerce website (e.g. major store) |
|
Using the Smart Products service will save you from receiving thumb drives, Dropbox links, and Excel files from brands. If you choose Choice C above, your Bridge account will act as an image and product library giving you the most recent images, prices, and product information for all of your Smart Brands in one easy spot. You will copy this data into your site. You can export one item at a time or up to all of the items at once.
Add Bridge to Your Existing Web Platform
Bridge works with all 3rd-party providers. If you are planning on choice B or C above, you may be using one of the third-party providers shown here:
Gift Registry Integration
You have two choices to offer Smart Products via your gift registry service.
- You can use Bridge's gift registry software and instantly populate it with Smart Products. For examples of retailers using this method, please see choices A and B in the chart above.
- You can copy our Smart Products to your third-party website. For examples of this, please see choice C in the chart above.
Tips
How to Use Smart Products?
You can use Smart Products in two primary ways:
- A Better Product & Image Library (Choice C above)
For starters, you can use use your Bridge account as an image and product library to view and download product data from your most popular brands. Your account offers comprehensive product data from 110 brands on one site vs having to visit 110 different brand websites. You can download this data from your Bridge account. You can use this database as a 'one stop shop' to get all the current product prices, pictures, dimensions, stock, and descriptions. All of the different brands products will be formatted the same way in one Excel sheet and then you can then easily import this into your website or POS.
Learn more about the data you receive when using the the Smart Products export feature » - A Pre-Populated Online Store & Gift Registry (Choice A and B above)
If you wish to skip downloading the Smart Product data and then importing it into your website, Bridge offers you an e-commerce website that is pre-populated with your Smart Product data in it. You can use this website to sell the Smart Products to your customers. The e-commerce store (which includes gift registry software) also allows you to add any item from any brand. As such, you can sell any item from any brand (even if it's not a Smart Brand partner). If you have a website with a 'splash' page or have a site that is just informational, you can add a link that says, for example, "Gift Registry" and have it lead to your Bridge's gift registry.