Hey guys! I'm Alana, Co-Founder and CEO of Bulletin. We're building WeWork for Retail Space. Any business can lease space in one of our stores and start selling their products IRL in 5 days or less.
We started Bulletin because we knew it was really difficult for cool, new brands to get their products in stores. Pitching retailers or doing pop ups is super time consuming and expensive. We wanted to make selling in person as turnkey and flexible as selling online.
So we built a platform that allows brands to share the cost of a store. Brands pay a flat monthly fee and get access to space at one of our stores. They're able to see sales in real time and can even chat with our retail staff to get customer feedback. Brands can also pay to have an iPad in their space so they can push content like lookbooks, tutorial videos, instagram feed, etc.
We have 2 actives stores in NYC right now and are opening more category specific stores in the future. We're ALWAYS looking for cool products to put in our stores. If you make any kind of physical product, feel free to apply!
Happy to answer any questions. :)
Love this concept. The feedback loops for physical goods takes far too long, especially for startups. Distribution is also very difficult, especially for indie makers.
What cities are you planning to expand to next, @alana_grace?
@rrhoover Hi Ryan! After NYC, we've definitely seen the most demand from LA. We also get a lot of applications from SF, Austin, Toronto and London.
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When I read "WeWork for Retail Space" and selling products IRL in 5 days, I thought you were getting them temporary retail locations (a real estate company in a way). Essentially, you are a glorified consignment store?
@brad_wolff Our sharing model makes us different from a traditional real estate company but, like a consignment store, we don't actually own any inventory.
@shivagg Hi Shiva! Definitely some similarities but for now we have pretty different customers (both brands and shoppers).
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Out of curiosity, if a customer wants to make a return, would they have to deal directly with that company, or does Bulletin take care of it? Also, this would be a great company to offer gift cards!
@askdaylen They deal directly with Bulletin. All sales and returns go through our POS. Love the gift cards idea :)
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Congratulations on your very interesting launch!
Have you considered selling mobile apps IRL?
To clarify: You could have a "space" featuring merch for mobile apps that you're promoting...
With an iPad in that space featuring all of the apps promoted by your store!
This gives customers an opportunity to test out apps before they buy!
Thoughts?
Thanks,
JB.
@jay_bee12345 Good idea! We eventually want all companies to be able to use retail space as media and lease space in markets that make sense for what they're selling (even if its a mobile app)!
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