At #eucatalyst, less than a fortnight ago, I spoke to many ecommerce traders in a sweaty, sweltering London heatwave about the weekend just over. The sentiment was fairly unanimous. Such tropical weather has been very bad for sales, with dips on a normal weekend between anything between 20 – 80% down. As one trader said: “if anyone thinks sunny weather is good for ecommerce they don’t understand their numbers and need their head examined.”
Tamebay’s own traffic revealed similar trends. The sunny weekend seriously diminished visitors and actually the Jubilee wasn’t much better. Despite the fact it tipped it down, it would seem that the distraction of the celebrations was enough to dampen web activity. I’d be interested to hear experiences of ecommerce over the Jubilee weekend.
So it would be nice, wouldn’t it, to just have a fairly boring weekend. Here’s to that.
Of course, even this weekend isn’t without distractions. Euro 2012 matches begin today (although England don’t play a match until Monday) and in many parts of the country it’s also half term.
And that brings me on to the Olympics. July and August can be troublesome months for ecommerce with the nadir of the online selling year often being a sunny August Bank Holiday. Predictions for the Olympics are most welcome. Will it pass most of us by if we want it to or will the nation be transfixed by the spectacle for the better part of three weeks?
5 Responses
I saw a dip in sales during March that I put down to the nice weather too.
Interestingly, I’ve found I seem to get most of my sales on eBay during the football on a Tuesday/Wednesday night (Champions League mainly). I.e. TV on but not watching it and on eBay instead.
Here’s to successful sales during the Euros 😀
Amen to that. Bank holidays – double ones at that – leave us with 6 days work in 4 days, starting with a peak of 4 days orders ready to go (and negative feedback from a buyer annoyed not to have received his Friday pm order by Monday – thanks!)
Not a good week for eBay’s messaging system to start developing a glitch and reject messages to our buyers.
Weather I have to accept can’t be changed, but surely eBay could do more to get out of the way when it comes to these busy periods to allow us to make hay rather than get lost in the long grass.
Amen to the rain.
We had a fantastic week which was a real surprise but now the pressure is on with 2 days lost production.
Hopefully we get knocked out of the Euro’s early and the Olympics is a wash out. 😀
buyers in china australia usa asia africa dont give a bugger about our weather ? or the euros or the jubilee
I think if you sell BBQ’s or similar outdoor products that you’d do quite well in sunny weather… 🙂