Bridge Product Sharing Service: Smart Products

Helping the Retail Industry Share and Sell 63,678 Products

Smart Products light bulb
Shop for Fissler products
Shop for Gien products
Shop for Joseph Joseph products
Shop for Messermeister products
View complete list of Smart Product partners

What Problem Does The Smart Products Service Solve?

  • Current options for sharing product data take too long.
  • Current options for adding products to websites are expensive.
  • Businesses that can’t efficiently share data are losing market share.
  • The Smart Products service can be set up in a few minutes. It's free for retailers and affordable for brand partners.
  • The Smart Products service is integrated with an online store and registry.
  • We help businesses work smarter—not harder.

The Smart Products Service Will Save Your Business Time and Money

Cost to Add 1,000 Products to a Website

Average time of adding an item
Average time of adding an item
Average time of adding an item
  • An indie store often spends 50 hours and $750 to add 1,000 products to its website.
  • This causes the store to add fewer products to its website and puts the store at a disadvantage compared to channels like Amazon.com.
  • The Smart Products service reduces this time to less than 4 minutes and the cost to zero (yes, free).
  • The retailer simply receives approval from the Smart Brand to sync products.
  • The products appear in the retailer's Bridge account. When the retailer uses Bridge Store, the products are ready for shopping and adding to a registry.

Using the above calculations, let’s compare the costs of adding products vs. using the Smart Products service:

Brand Number of Products Time to Add to Website Manually Cost to Add to Website Manually Annual Cost to Maintain Manual Products Cost to Add to Website Using Smart Products Service Time to Add to Website Using Smart Products Service
Beatriz Ball 856 6.1 Days $642 $161 Free
Save $803
4 Minutes
Save 6.1 Days
Casafina 1,007 7.2 Days $755 $189 Free
Save $944
4 Minutes
Save 7.2 Days
Herend 4,888 34.9 Days $3,666 $917 Free
Save $4,583
4 Minutes
Save 34.9 Days
Juliska 853 6.1 Days $640 $160 Free
Save $800
4 Minutes
Save 6.1 Days
VIETRI 2,277 16.3 Days $1,708 $427 Free
Save $2,135
4 Minutes
Save 16.3 Days
Beatriz Ball
Number of Products 856
Time to Add to Website Manually 6.1 Days
Cost to Add to Website Manually $642
Annual Cost to Maintain Manual Products $161
Cost to Add to Website Using Smart Products Service Free Save
$803
Time to Add to Website Using Smart Products Service 4 Minutes Save
6.1 Days
Casafina
Number of Products 1,007
Time to Add to Website Manually 7.2 Days
Cost to Add to Website Manually $755
Annual Cost to Maintain Manual Products $189
Cost to Add to Website Using Smart Products Service Free Save
$944
Time to Add to Website Using Smart Products Service 4 Minutes Save
7.2 Days
Herend
Number of Products 4,888
Time to Add to Website Manually 34.9 Days
Cost to Add to Website Manually $3,666
Annual Cost to Maintain Manual Products $917
Cost to Add to Website Using Smart Products Service Free Save
$4,583
Time to Add to Website Using Smart Products Service 4 Minutes Save
34.9 Days
Juliska
Number of Products 853
Time to Add to Website Manually 6.1 Days
Cost to Add to Website Manually $640
Annual Cost to Maintain Manual Products $160
Cost to Add to Website Using Smart Products Service Free Save
$800
Time to Add to Website Using Smart Products Service 4 Minutes Save
6.1 Days
VIETRI
Number of Products 2,277
Time to Add to Website Manually 16.3 Days
Cost to Add to Website Manually $1,708
Annual Cost to Maintain Manual Products $427
Cost to Add to Website Using Smart Products Service Free Save
$2,135
Time to Add to Website Using Smart Products Service 4 Minutes Save
16.3 Days

The above costs are calculated assuming a person is paid $15/hour and adds 20 products an hour.

How Different Business Types Use Smart Products

Bridge's Smart Products service helps businesses share and sell thousands of products. Your business can use our platform as a 'one-stop shop' to more easily share product information to run your business.

Learn how Smart Products can help your business:

 
Are You a Retailer?
 

For Retailers

  • A retailer uses the Smart Products service to display and sell products from its popular brands. The retailer saves time and money because the service enables it to skip downloading product content from many brands' websites. If a retailer sells tens of brands, it would have to visit tens of brand sites to get this data that Bridge has compiled and made uniform in one account.
  • A retailer can turn on a Bridge Store, and Bridge will auto-populate this product data into this e-commerce site.
  • Without any additional work, what is in the retailer's Bridge account will become an organized, shoppable website.
Are You a Brand
or Distributor?

For Brands

  • A brand places its products in its Smart Products account. This enables it to instantly share its items with authorized businesses, including retailers, sales reps, interior designers, and trade show buildings.
  • A brand's products appear in a synced business's Bridge account in the same organization as the brand arranged the products in its account. In this way, the brand helps its businesses properly organize its items.
  • A brand only has to update a product once in its Bridge account, and that change will take effect on every member's account.
  • This technology ensures that new products, price changes, and discontinued products are taken care of for the businesses.
  • Each retailer may receive its own Bridge Store that services and sells to its respective consumer base.
  • Since retailers can instantly display and sell these Smart Products online, the brand will sell more.
 
Are You a
Sales Rep?
 

For Sales Reps

  • A sales rep uses its free Bridge account to view Smart Product data from brands it reps.
  • The rep saves time by doing this on its Bridge account instead of visiting many brand websites. If a rep works with many brands, it would have to visit many sites to get this data that Bridge has compiled and made uniform in one location.
  • When a rep logs in to its account, it may view orders that its retailers have received for Smart Products. This helps the rep service the retailers.
  • The rep keeps its contact information up to date in Bridge. Stores use Bridge to see the rep's telephone number and email address. This makes reordering easier for stores.
  • The rep uses Bridge to learn about new introductions and price updates in one spot vs. visiting many brand sites.
For Trade Organizations • For Web Designers

Brands and Retailers Report Selling 18% More Due to Smart Products

Retailers' Average Increase in Sales
Retailers' average increase in sales due to Bridge's product-syncing service

Survey base: 42 brick-and-mortar Bridge retailers
Two studies have shown that Smart Products help businesses sell more. In a survey conducted by Bridge, retailers reported selling up to 18% more when they use Bridge's Smart Products service. In a study conducted by DeVine Corporation, retailers reported selling 13% more than those that did not use the program.

See the results from the Smart Products survey.

The Smart Products Service Makes Adding Products To a Website Easier

Many retailers and brands use Dropbox and Excel to share products. A brand replicates its website by placing the product data in an Excel file, zipping the product images, and sharing this via Dropbox. The retailer then rebuilds the brand’s site on its site. This process resembles this:
Bridge is easier and faster
Bridge is easier and faster
When a retailer adds products individually to its site, that process entails these steps:
Retailers add products in 7 steps
Bridge reduces these steps. Our technology bypasses these steps in favor of directly outputting the products in a retailer’s online Bridge Store. A brand using the Bridge product sharing service only loads an item once, and it will appear in all of its approved Bridge accounts.
Bridge is easier and faster

Remember In-store, Branded Displays? We've Made Them Digital

For decades, brands have paid retailers to set up a display in their stores. Ralph Lauren's Polo, Nautica, Jimmy Choo, and other leading brands paid department stores to set up displays and manage their brand appearance. This helps the brands and the stores increase sales.

As we all know, retail has gone digital. Thirty percent of retail sales are now online. What if there was a way for brands to sponsor displays like these physical ones but do so online? There is: our Smart Products service allows brands to set up digital displays on a store's website. The brand manages the images and product assortment. The store is responsible for handling the sale and delivering the goods.

More than one hundred brands use our digital display technology, including Versace, Vera Wang, and Juliska. They manage their brand on stores across the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean. Bridge brought to indie stores' websites what Bloomingdales used to offer on its store floor. We're allowing brands to operate 'mini-stores' within the retailers' sites.

Read more about our branded online display services.

What Information Is Included With Each Smart Product?

Each Smart Product contains up to 40 different variables, including price, length, width, and multiple picture sizes. Each product's data is maintained by its respective brand. Smart Product variables include:

Stock Sharing

Smart Brands may choose to share their stock with their authorized retailers and sales reps via Bridge. Only businesses that the brands approve see their stock, and they will only see it once they log in.

Featured brands that currently share stock via Bridge:

Showing stock on Bridge makes it easier for authorized retailers and reps to get stock information. They can set reasonable delivery expectations and reduce calls to customer service.

Bridge offers different paths to collect stock information from a brand.

Cost: We offer stock sharing for free to Bridge Smart Brands as part of their membership. Please contact Bridge for more information.

Common Questions

  • Who uses the service?
    Retailers, brands, and sales reps in the United States, Caribbean, and Canada. Of the top-10 selling tableware and giftware brands, all ten (100%) use the Smart Products service. Of the top-20 selling brands, 90% use the service.
  • What is being shared?
    Members are sharing 63,678 products from 120 brand partners. The shared product data includes prices, professional pictures, dimensions, descriptions, and thirty other key variables. Retailers use this data to keep their websites and in-store POS systems up to date. Members also share news, files, and sales data. Please note: a member has to be approved by the product owner to share data. A member cannot join Bridge and get unapproved access to a partner brand’s product data.
  • How does the Smart Product service work?
    Bridge's Smart Products service is a data-sharing and file-sharing platform. The service allows businesses to store and share product data in real-time from one central, secure library (database). Read a walk-through of how the Smart Products service works.
  • Why do we call the shared products 'Smart Products'?
    We call them Smart Products because it's as if the products have a brain inside them, and they know when to get on and off the retailer's 'digital shelf.' This intelligent product approach is made possible by the brands maintaining their respective items in Bridge.

Meet the Team Building the Smart Products Service

We've been designing and building websites for businesses since 2001. Today, our platform services hundreds of businesses and processes millions of dollars in sales for clients. Our software leverages 20 years of retail experience to connect the retail and wholesale worlds.

» Learn more about the Bridge team and its motivation

Jason Solarek of Bridge

Bridge in the News

Read the HFN articleHFN Magazine
Read the Tableware Today articleTableware Today
American Express

Page tags: automated product updates, self-updating products, image library, image vault, file sharing, image repository, supply chain management, datafeed, social commerce, SoComm, product sharing, optimizing product content, collaboration, team, efficiency, data management, product information management, PIM, Digital Asset Management, DAM, product syncing service, product data syndication