We saw a wide variety of results for the stores we talked to and met with during 2025. The usual factors were in play - weather, geography, brands, staffing, etc - so we’re not sure how helpful the industry-wide, in-store sales data are as a reference point, so we’ll just say we heard it all. It felt like our stores had solid results in-store overall based on our conversations. There were certainly exceptions, but I heard a lot of folks saying they were up relative to 2024.

2025 vs 2024 on the Workstand platform - the number of stores with significant online sales was strong in 2025.
Dollars: +7.4% over 2024
Orders: +3.7% over 2024
Units: +3.7% over 2024

Perhaps the most surprising trend is that sales of electronics across the Workstand platform, once considered almost guaranteed to be fraudulent, are not only legit, but up 28% over 2024. Wild!

• What worked, what helped strong online and in-store sales?
• Focus on aged inventory - that's where margin goes to die, keep it lean and keep it moving
• Testing shipping options - for many shoppers, shipping costs matter more than the price of the item they are buying
• Ad spend - Returns were high for stores willing to invest
• Buying for online - there were deals to be had with many brands and suppliers, so buying the dips worked well
• Intentional content and marketing - good content matters, and intentional investment in the message paid off

We have upcoming events:

David will be leading an NBDA Superwebinar on January 26th, entitled, Making Your Data Work for Your Business, Episode 1 of the 2026 Workstand NBDA Webinar Series. It’s the first in a series of webinars we’re doing with NBDA this year. 

We’ll have a presence at CABDA Midwest in February. Workstand will have a booth and be speaking.
We'll have a team at Frostbike at the end of February.

Be sure to email your questions to podcast@workstand.com. We read all emails sent, and we look forward to hearing from you.

If you're a Workstand client with questions about your subscription, email support@workstand.com or call 303-527-0676 x 1. If you are not currently a Workstand client with questions about how our programs work, email info@workstand.com.

Find Us on LinkedIn
Mark Still, Senior Business Development
David Martinez, Key Accounts Advisor

We also publish Around the Workstand on our YouTube channel if you'd like to watch while you listen. Here is our Around the Workstand playlist.

If you have any questions about the topics discussed in this episode of Around the Workstand or if you have ideas for new topics we can cover, schedule a time to meet with Mark Still here or email mark.s@workstand.com.