29 March 2024, 08:56
By Furniture News Jan 15, 2019

How does furniture retail weather extreme temperatures?

Each year, Furniture News asks some of the UK’s top retailers to share their views on some of the most significant industry developments, and how these might impact their future. In an excerpt from our annual Year in Review special (which features in the January issue), with the threat of snow looming as the trade enters its busiest show season, we ask the panel's members for their thoughts on how the weather affects sales in today's retail environment …

In February 2018, a cold wave dubbed the Beast from the East hit the UK with arctic temperatures, later combining with Storm Emma to create a series of severe cold spells. While just some parts of the UK came to a standstill, the entire nation felt the chill of this late winter blast.

Later in the year, the weather went to another extreme, as the nation was bathed in a lengthy heatwave that stretched into late August.

Weather has always been considered an important factor in deciding in-store customer footfall, and what people buy. But how much did these extremes impact furniture retailers in 2018, particularly given their increasing reliance on digital channels?

Mike Murray (Land of Beds): The July heatwave had a positive effect on online sales, but a negative impact in-store – in comparison, the arctic temperatures in February hit us on both fronts. This could simply be an anomaly, but I’ll be interested to see if a similar pattern emerges over the coming years.

Overall, we would forecast that extreme weather is going to have a negative impact on people going into stores, whereas online sales could maintain stability. Being able to respond dynamically is something I’m open to exploring with our partners. For example, could we advertise certain types of products – for a short period only – which help people to sleep better in substantially warmer or cooler temperatures?

That said, the social, economic and political climate we have been trading under also needs to be taken into consideration. For example, during July we were all championing England through the World Cup stages, which made the whole nation more upbeat. This feelgood factor could just as easily have been responsible for the upturn in online sales as the sunny weather!

Peter Harding (Fairway Furniture): There is little doubt that the weather played a bigger part in our 2018 trading performance than in any other of the past 20 or so years. The Beast from the East meant we suffered store closures due to snow towards the end of our crucial Winter Sale, impacting momentum and affecting overall results for what was already proving to be a challenging sale period.

The heatwave summer also had a major impact – relentless sunshine for almost five weeks suppressed footfall markedly and meant lead-generation was much weaker as we headed into the autumn.

Usually, consumers default to normal shopping patterns after a week of sunshine, but last year, that simply didn’t happen – footfall was well down week after week, and as a result, sales were too. However, once the rain reappeared in August, we saw the return to normal trading, with one of our best August trading periods for a decade.

Ross Beveridge (Archers Sleepcentre): The Beast from East had a dramatic impact on our bricks-and-mortar trade, leaving our stores -45% down on the previous year in the week commencing 26thFebruary, which carried the worst of the weather in Scotland.

Three of our 12 stores failed to open for two days, and prior to that all of them were closed early, with staff being sent home as concerns for safety increased.

Unfortunately, the website experienced no counteracting uplift to suggest our customers just stayed at home and bought instead – there really is no substitute for buying in-store, it would seem.

Given the conditions, I wasn’t surprised by the drop in trade – people were, quite rightly, more focused on getting essentials such as bread and milk than upgrading their bedrooms.

Of course, not only were customers not coming in, but there were no beds going out, with deliveries grinding to a halt.

That said, people were very understanding, and we soon got things back on track. I’m glad to say sales returned to expected levels (and better) following that, and it was business as usual. It’s unfortunate things seem to come to a complete standstill in the UK when it snows, but I’m sure we will be better prepared should this weather become the norm.

The combination of a heatwave and World Cup fever did its best to add some grey hairs, and it was well publicised that retail in general suffered over the six-eight week summer period – I think BBQ and alcohol supplies picked up the lion’s share of the free cash then!

You might make hay while the sun is shining – just not so many bed sales. Luckily for us, trade picked up toward the end of July and through August, but there was no sudden increase to make up for the drop.

There is no denying trade has been challenging in 2018, but nobody said retail was easy – and, if they did, they were lying. We have seen some big names announcing CVAs or even turning out the lights as cash flows dried up. I think many see survival as the new success – and especially so when the weather has its say.

Steve Adams (MattressOnline.co.uk): We experience less fluctuations online than in-store, but it can still be a challenge, especially with the heat – we expect to see a decline in sales on a hot day, especially over the weekend.

The opposite occurs with cold and rain – we see a correlation between poor weather and increasing online visitors.

We can mitigate these risks to a small degree by being more reactive to the products we push online – for instance, making sure we have a cool summer duvet at the forefront of our offers on a hot day.

Ultimately, though, it is impossible to change shopping behaviour that’s influenced by external sources. As a rule, when the weather returns to normal we see trading patterns reflect that, and sometimes even spike.

Gavin Boden (furniture sales and marketing professional): Anything which affects retail, either online or on the high street, has a knock-on effect on my business. You would think that the bad weather encourages consumers to shop more online, but from looking at figures I believe consumers don’t feel like shopping at all when the weather outside is miserable.

Steve Pickering (Sussex Beds): Extreme weather does have an impact on business – luckily, though, in our industry this is generally short-term and simply delays the visit or purchase rather than causing a permanent loss of trade.

In our experience, and strangely, extreme weather seems to affect both stores and ecommerce trading equally, because consumer mindsets switch off from normal day-to-day activity and focus is drawn towards the weather event. Gradually, though, normal behaviours return, and general trading patterns with them.

With regards to the weather events of 2018, we were not directly hit by the severe snow, but the warnings and constant news of the impending event was enough to impact footfall and sales.

The summer period for us probably had more of a prolonged impact, especially in the initial months of May and June. Traditionally, bank holidays are key trading weekends, and sales were significantly reduced over both.

However, trading through July, August and especially October were stronger, and recovered the sales falls seen through the weather events.

Read more feedback from our panel in the January issue of Furniture News.

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