Around the Workstand

Think about the last time you bought something important. Chances are, you didn't just walk into a store blind. You probably did some online research first. In fact, 83% of consumers now conduct research online before ever setting foot in a physical retail location. This means your website isn't just a digital brochure—it is, more often than not, the first impression a customer has of your entire business.

Imagin...

Workstand provides many tools and resources to help your website stand out and to help it be a great resource for shoppers and other cyclists researching their local cycling community. In this episode, we talk about 4 ways to improve the look and feel of your site, from DIY with the help of our Client Success team, all the way to full custom design projects.

Help Center - Theme Editor and Page Editor - sample homepage from our libra...

Two of the more common questions, especially from stores that are new to the Workstand platform, are ‘what are the keys to selling more?’ and ‘what are the really successful stores doing to grow?’. Generally speaking, a shop needs to have four elements to generate revenue.  These four elements work together, and missing just one can kill growth.

1. Products that are in demand - Shops need to have products that customers are searchi...

Taking a moment to reframe some thinking that evolved negatively from brick and mortar processes, and that should be thought of as growth opportunities these days. Shipping costs aren't just a dead expense. They can be a tool for strategic growth and customer satisfaction.

Read more in this blog post

• Shipping Best Practices
  • Your shipping out expense should be considered a marketing expense, and not just a margin killer 

Julie Walsh, Account Manager and Marketing Strategist from the Workstand Marketing Agency Team, joins the podcast to talk about successful strategies for sales success during the 2025 holiday season. Julie has also published a new blog post with even more details and additional resources to help you grow sales in a challenging and competitive market.

The high-level tips are:
1. Look through the eyes of your customers<...

Key Accounts Advisor, David Martinez, works with Workstand merchants to improve many aspects of in-store and online sales execution to grow sales while increasing margin. Inventory management is an important part of David's work with bike shops.

As we’ve brought on more dealers to the Digital Advisor Services program, some trends have emerged, offering useful tips for other stores. Obvious, you say? If they are obviou...

It's time again to review the data and metrics from the Workstand platform and talk about what we can learn from sales across our platform. 

• August Workstand platform metrics
  • Ecommerce sales saw another month of double-digit growth on Workstand. 
  • Online order volume was the strongest it’s been all year, with a YOY increase of 8%, with 20,459 orders being the highest volume of any month this year. 
  • Sessions saw another mont...

Matt Lolli came to Workstand after a long career working in successful bike shops. Matt works with brands and suppliers who want to use Workstand technology and services to support local bike shops in growing sales and better serve their customers.

Here’s a high-level overview of Brand & Supplier services that we’ll be discussing in detail later in the episode. 

• Why do brands and suppliers choose to engage with us? 
• What is in...

Ryan has again been on the move. Visiting Workstand team members and merchants in Oregon recently. He'll be here in Colorado soon!

• July Platform metrics
  • Total online sales last month showed a recovery from the slowing trend of May and June, which was a likely hangover from the pre-tariff burst in March and April. 
  • Total order volume and units sold were relatively flat, but higher average order value drove results. 
  • Higher ...

Mark is joined this week by Matt Viara, leader of the Workstand paid Google ads team. What are paid ads? How do we help bike shops participate in paid Google programs? What are the costs and benefits? We talk about all of that!

We give a high-level overview of our paid ads programs and touch on the 4 offerings that we’ll discuss in detail during the episode.

• Why Local and Full Service?
• What is product vs awareness?
• Why do we differ...

Boulder visit

• Doggy happy hour
• Coffee
• Bike ride
• PFB let me work from their office

Upcoming BRAIN article about scheduling software

• Service Appointment Scheduling feature (drop off)
• WorkstandIQ staff scheduling

NBDA State of the Industry webinar reinforces our value

• The recent National Bicycle Dealers Association hosted a webinar with expert guests, with a lot of time spent talking about what successful retail looks lik...

Ryan and Mark discuss results from May, with a quick note on the strong March and April numbers that we didn't get to talk about due to Ryan's many travels when we'd normally record an Around the Workstand episode.

We mention this recent episode with our Key Accounts Advisor, David Martinez, and the Digital Advisor Service he's offering Workstand clients

NBDA Summit recap

• A good number of supplier att...

The idea of leveraging catalog-enabled websites and ecommerce to grow sales beyond a retailer's home market is one of the main reasons Workstand has so many bike shops using our platform. In addition to the website platform, Workstand's marketing agency team helps more than 400 stores manage their digital presence and promote their store locally and nationally. As our Key Accounts Advisor, David Martinez wraps all of that...

Ryan Atkinson has continued his travels and brings us the latest in how brands, suppliers, and merchants in bicycle retail are feeling during some uncertain times. There are bright spots and some optimism, particularly among retailers. 

Themes from industry events

1. Bicycle Leadership Conference (suppliers)
2. NBDA Retailer Summit (both) - join the Midwest event in Bentonville in May
3. CABDA West (both)

• Uncertainty among suppliers...

In this episode, we delve into the intricacies of conducting successful promotions, a pivotal segment in our ongoing year-long marketing program aimed at empowering businesses. We focus on strategies that not only help retailers remain competitive but also enhance customer engagement, particularly as we approach the prime spring sale season. Our discussion emphasizes that promotions extend beyond discounts; they can also include in...

Ryan is back with us after some travel, but he's not done yet! There are a few more trade shows and industry gatherings on the horizon, and he'll be presenting at most of them. We talk about those shows and the state of the bicycle industry, and the vibe and attitude of the dealers Ryan is meeting at shows like CABDA.

• CABDA Midwest
  • Split, dealers looking to diversity with ecommerce growth
  • Dealers looking for foot tra...

We continue our series on marketing your business for sales growth in-store and online in 2025 with tips on website and marketing setups that make shopping your online store easier and reduce purchase friction,

For more details, check out our latest blog post - https://blog.workstand.com/make-shopping-easy

• Design - minimal clutter, accessibility 
• Make it easy for shoppers to find what they are looking for
  • Search function
  • Navigat...

Around the Workstand Daily - we are often asked about training and our How To videos are the most viewed videos we produce so Around the Workstand Daily hopes to address frequent, short, videos to help our clients learn important features and do so more efficiently than the production work that goes into a more planned video. So, they won’t be perfect sometimes but they’ll help those who would rather watch a video than read a help ...

Today is the first episode of a series for 2025 focused on helping bicycle shops effectively market and grow their businesses. We’ve always talked about marketing on the show however, we saw in 2024 that merchants who proactively promoted their businesses, the ones who engaged with the tools available to make their stores more visible to shoppers, those stores had impressive wins while business owners who took a passive or underres...