Weather influences shopping
The impact of weather on retail sales is undeniable. yeartodate sales of sandals, flipflops, shorts, bikinis and warm weather clothing and gear are way down from last year, leaving retailers holding huge inventories of unsold seasonal goods.
As a result, they need to start clearing spring and summer stock because, guess what fall is just around the corner. Old Navy, I saw the other day, was advertising flipflops for $1. That doesn't leave much room for a profit margin.
Back in March, The Globe and Mail reported that Ontario retailers were enjoying a welcome lift in sales of shorts, sandals and other warmweather merchandise discount north face up as much as 30 per cent or more in some categories from a year earlier because of the mild spring.
But what you gain on the swings, it seems, you lose on the roundabouts. The Globe also pointed out that Eastern retailers were worrying about how to recoup substantial losses from a mild winter that melted away sales of coats, boots and snow shovels.
There are several ways weather influences shoppers' demand for goods and services. It affects a person's decision to shop or not, particularly for discretionary items, as cold and wet weather encourage people north face online coupons to stay at home. Climate also affects demand for certain products directly: hot weather lifts sales of summer clothes and gardening equipment, while sales of umbrellas and raincoats normally rise on rainy days.
If you Google "weather and retail sales," you'll find dozens of headlines like: "Warm weather helps US retail sales" and "UK retail sales surge on warm weather," referring to the months of April and May. "Canadian retail sales rebound on warm weather," confirms the Statistics Canada site, although it is referring to Eastern Canada.
The reverse, as we know from experience here on the West Coast, is also true. "British retail sales slide in wettest March on record," says the Daily Telegraph.
"Retail sales drop after wet weather," adds the Seattle Times. So if a rainy spring cuts sales, how many pairs of shorts should a store order? The problem retailers face is that they must make their buying decisions months before they know the weather forecast. It turns out there is indeed a way to find out, although it isn't 100 per cent reliable. Several weather forecasting companies, including Accuweather, Weatherbank, SDI/ Weather Trends and others are now producing longrange weather forecasts specifically with national retailers in mind.
A couple of years back, a wellknown Canadian clothing chain was told that a colderthannormal spring would be followed by a warmerthanusual summer, so the company decided not to mark down its shorts in June like it would normally have done in the hope they would fly off the shelves in July and August.
In addition, the forecast called for warmer temperatures in Western Canada and cooler ones in the East. So the retailer distributed 8,000 pairs of shorts from the East to Western stores. The chain later reported that the moves helped it clear an additional $250,000 on that merchandise.