Many merchants and Main Street associations are adding Pinterest to their growing list of social media must-dos. We think this is right and encourage businesses to take advantage of every channel they can to find new customers, but we also want you to know that we consciously designed Main and Me to support local independent … Continue reading »
Welcome, Early Adopters! The world (increasingly) shops online, but very few local independent merchants have the time or resources to a) post photos of their newest inventory to the web, and b) master the art of “search engine optimization” (in order to appear at the top of Google searches). Main and Me is a web … Continue reading »
Congratulations 3/50 on 90,000 likes. 90,000!!?? A testament to your vision and the authenticity of your message. We are big supporters of the The 3/50 Project here at Main and Me. Such a simple idea, and so very wise about creating an actionable concept (3…50…) which captures the imagination and changes what seems abstract and … Continue reading »
Amazon really put the screws to local business over the holidays last year with their Price Check app. Wouldn’t it be nice to return the favor? It turns out there is a practical and fun way to do so. The seven major U.S. holidays present an opportunity to simultaneously solve a problem shared by millions … Continue reading »
As creators of an internet start up, the Main and Me founding team tends to be connected to the internet almost 24/7. To offset the health risk of over-connectedness, some of us have formed the habit of taking a one hour walk everyday with Omar, the standard poodle disguised to look like a regular dog. It was during … Continue reading »
Getting started on Main and Me is as easy as uploading a photo to Facebook IF YOU ARE A BUSINESS OWNER: To create a store page for your local business: Use your smartphone or digital camera to snap a beautiful photo of a product or service you sell Upload photo to your computer Go to … Continue reading »
If you are a local, independent retailer, you may be forgiven for experiencing palpitations when Amazon announced it’s Price Check app last year. To paraphrase their press release at the time: “We’ll give you $5 if you use our price-scanning app in brick-and-mortar stores this Black Friday weekend.” As described in a Dec. 7th, 2011 … Continue reading »
There’s a William Gibson quote we love here at Main and Me: “The future is already here. It’s just unevenly distributed.” We think it perfectly describes the quandary faced by independent retailers: the future (i.e. web and mobile shopping) is here; it’s just unevenly distributed (i.e. family-raising, resource-challenged YOU have to compete for customers online against global retail corporations with unlimited … Continue reading »
Web and mobile shopping has not been kind to local retailers, and if the news is to be believed, the situation promises to get worse. But the internet is just a tool, as easily used for good as evil. At Main and Me, we re-purpose the same technology Amazon and Zappos use to showcase their products … Continue reading »
Once upon a time there was a (husband/father/boyfriend/son) who wasn’t very good at giving (Valentine’s Day/Birthday/Anniversary/Christmas/Mother’s Day/Graduation) gifts. So he tended to either not give anything at all (downplaying the importance of “silly” holidays), or to buy some terrible gift at the last minute that his (wife/girlfriend/mother) really didn’t want, often making her more upset. … Continue reading »
