Around the Workstand

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 PracticesYour shipping out expense should be considered a marketing expense, and not just a margin killer Similar to your in-store sales, which have a rent, utility, wages, and...

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 obvious to you, that’s great, but they come up often enough that we think they ar...

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 it for merchants? Catalog Enrichment Cornerstone...

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 differentiate in that way?With that groundwork in place, we’ll move to...

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 attendeesSolid presentationsDon’t know about the May date, stores are busy, but the meeting is ...

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 Bicycle Leadership Conference (suppliers)NBDA Retailer Summit (both) - join the Midwest event in Bentonville in MayCABDA West (both)Uncertainty among suppliers, optimism with dealersTariff confusion and frustrationThrottle elec...

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 MidwestSplit, dealers looking to diversity with ecommerce growthDealers looking for foot trafficUniversal interest in Google advertisingLot of POS conversationsLot of prai...

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 center article. Here's our Around the Workstand Daily playlist...