S10 E3 How Weather Quietly Reshapes Buying Strategy, Sales and Shopper Behaviour

In this episode of Buying Beyond we dive into one of retail's biggest unspoken variables - the weather, and how it quietly reshapes shopper behavior, sales patterns, and buying strategy.

We kick off discussing the current UK heatwave before unpacking how extreme temperatures are driving record-breaking sales in soft drinks and ice cream, changing shopping channels (in-store vs. online), and creating headaches for buyers and merchandisers trying to plan stock, promotions, and seasonal transitions around unpredictable conditions. We also explore the growing role of resale platforms like Vinted in reflecting real-time, weather-driven demand, and why blaming poor sales purely on weather isn't good enough in a trading room - you need a plan of action too.

We finish with a fun "rain or shine" quickfire round on which retail categories win or lose depending on the forecast.

Three Key Takeaways:

1. Weather changes behavior differently than you'd expect -  rain mainly affects where people shop (shifting to online or indoor destinations), while temperature changes what people buy (driving spikes in categories like soft drinks, ice cream, and seasonal clothing).

2. "The weather affected sales" is not a complete explanation - retailers need to pair any weather-related sales commentary with a clear action plan (e.g., pulling stock forward, adjusting promotions, reallocating inventory) rather than treating it as an excuse.

3. Resale platforms are a real-time weather signal - sites like Vinted show organic, reactive buying patterns (e.g., surges in searches for linen dresses or raincoats) that can offer retailers useful signals for demand forecasting that traditional retail calendars can't match.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So, hello and welcome to this week's episode of Buying and Beyond. It is a hot one. How are you coping in the heat lid?

SPEAKER_01 0:09

I mean, it's not too bad where I am. So I just hope that everyone moves to Scotland. Yeah, you're actually getting better temperatures up there now, aren't you? Beautiful. I've been standing outside with my neighbours last night and we were just like, this is fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Horious. That is obviously the that is honestly the sweet spot. We were looking at, so we're south of England and temperatures are definitely over 30 right now. My husband slept in the garden last night and he's suggested that we decamp to West Wales for the weekend because it's 10 degrees cooler.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

He's got he's got a uh a good point there, Kate. And I'm so glad that you're getting use out of that sofa set that was in my range back in my gardens and debarring days, you know.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

We have got a gorgeous, like L-shaped garden piece of furniture, which actually we've got a cover over at the moment, you know, almost like an awning type. I don't know what to call it, like a pagola. Should we call it a pagola? A begola over it at the moment. So keep it a little shaded, but it is perfect, it's exactly where he slept. I was indoors, hot, hot, hot. I've even covered the kids' bedroom windows with tin f because I have heard that that's a way to keep the heat out. And how's that experiment going? I can't tell whether it's making a difference or not, but I guess it's because I don't have a control. Have you done in a spaceship or something like that? I don't be like, why is there four wheel on my window? But I'm like, well, they tell you in the winter to put foil behind your radiators, don't they? To keep the heat, like radiate the heat into your room. So I'm assuming that the foil on your windows should then reflect the heat off. But it is still getting hot in the room, so I don't know. I don't know. And I wonder, I wonder if we're seeing tin foil sales now through the roof. Yeah. But yeah, talking of weather, because it feels like that's all we do now. We thought that this week we would discuss the impact of weather on sales, and I think we're really going to enjoy it. We're really gonna, you know, really indulge ourselves, especially because in most retailers you can never mention the weather when it comes to trade.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

I know. I remember it being a sort of a lazy statement.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Yeah. One of those ones that they were like, don't want to hear about the weather. What is it that you've done with your range? I was like, I mean, it's an interesting one. So we've heard that convenience stores have had is it record-breaking sales? Can't they see that? Because people are just doing out in there for the for the air card. Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then while they're there, they're just sort of like, oh yeah, pick that up. I think one of the areas that they've seen it really, really peak is soft drinks. Again, you're out and about, you've got to keep hydrated, everyone's super thirsty. Of course, you're gonna pop into a convenience stores. But it's hit, the category has hit two time, has hit two all-time highs during the space of four weeks. So the sales hit 105 million over the bank holiday weekend, but then it reached 114 million the week ending 27th of June, which would be last week, the week before. Oh my god, that's insane stats, isn't it? And how do you forecast for that? I know. You I mean the the predictable one is ice cream, right? And I think it makes sense that it would be your soft drinks as well, but it does, it's not one that naturally comes to mind for me. But yeah, the ice cream category broke its value sales record twice. It's hit 14.8 million in the week ending 31st of May, and it was 18.0 million week ending the 27th of June. So that was rising 56% compared to the same week last year. Wow, it's incredible, isn't it? And and this is hot weather. This is not just slightly above average weather, like this is seriously hot. And I guess at the moment as well, you've also got people are just in a really good mindset because it's the World Cup, only happens every four years. People are just in a better mood, England's still in, it's coming in.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Yeah, that's probably in contributing to the soft drink side of things. You know, it's mixes, it's you know, it's people are out in their gardens having par garden parties, energy drinks to keep them up at night, keep them going the next day after the late night footballs. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Oh my gosh, you can imagine what the red ball stats are like through the roof.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

It's amazing, isn't it? Like thinking about the psychology of actually like why people buy. But I think it's an interesting question. Like, does sunshine increase average basket size?

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Because it's two, it's a double-edged well, double-edged sword, that's probably not the right expression, but it's a twofold thing, isn't it? Because in some ways, and when we're always talking about this in trade, in some ways the weather stops people from going into the stores because they're out and about and they're doing other things, and then in other ways it's like, oh panic, I don't have a uh set of garden furniture or I don't have a gazebo. I mean, I can only imagine that it's really hard to get hold of a gazebo right now, and they're probably like, Why didn't you buy five times as many?

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Yeah, why did you not buy enough? Did you not know that we're gonna be at least three heat waves where we hit nearly 40 degrees in New Zealand? Exactly not. Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Why did we not get on the cold plunge challenge trend?

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Oh god, everyone wants one of those right now. Our hot tub has been turned into a cold plunge. Because you're so right, consumers like they don't want to be going into shopping centres, particularly. They want to be outdoors, like especially us Brits, like you know, compared to other countries, say, I don't know, like Australia, like the sun shines, the moors are still busy because it's not like it might not it might not shine tomorrow. Whereas yeah, in the UK, we're like, oh my god, it's sunshine. Well, okay, well, we need to be outside because it might not be like this tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yeah, but then do you not feel like it has become quite it's obviously been very extreme this year? And I remember when I was in Singapore, I would just literally walk from shopping centre to shopping centre to get to the air con. I wonder if they're actually seeing a rise because people are like, this weather's lovely, but it's actually unbearable. Like this is babling me.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Actually, I'd rather be in a shopping centre that is cool.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

But then I guess that also then very quickly takes us into this time of year. What are you gonna be seeing if you're in say the clothes shops? Most people are in sale, yeah, which is great.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Potentially having phenomenal sales, like or had or went into sale late or are pushing their sale back because they're like, we could probably eat this out a little bit longer.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

That's true, but I feel like that's the clever thing to do, isn't it? Like that's the clever mindset. And I think sometimes when retailers are big ships, we just do what we do. There isn't time to be fleet of foot and thinking, oh, okay, well, if there's a gun, if this weather continues, we should probably put it's like okay, but you know, 29th of June, that's the day sale starts.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Yeah, and the six of it, isn't it? You know, we've both worked for large retailers and medium-sized retailers. You're totally right that you could pivot so much easier in a medium-sized retailer because it's not there's not so much red tape or so much logistical processes that you have to go through, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:28

So exactly. And if we break that down a little bit in terms of logistical processes, because there will be customers out there thinking, why on earth are all these bikinis and shorts in sale? Thinking exactly like we are, like the sensible thing would be. I mean, they're probably thinking, Well, whoo, this is great. Look how many pairs of shorts I can get for the price of one in full price, but they're probably thinking this is madness, this is absolute madness that all of these shorts and bikinis are in the sale and the coats are coming out.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Yeah, I was gonna say, because your autumn intake tends to come in anywhere between now and early August, yeah, which in itself is quite nuts. Now we're seeing such a shift with our temperatures, right? So I remember when I was at Marks and Spencer's stable in a transitional phase, which I always thought was really clever. So you'd have spring, summer, transitional, autumn, winter, and it was just that phase of a bit more lightweight, more than then going straight into like a heavy, a heavy material. And I don't think we were quite ready for it at that point, but now that's you know probably a genius strategy.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Yeah, it's one of those ones where you've got to kind of think about the mindset, right? And exactly, as we're talking about the logistics of where your products are and people going on holidays, and obviously people want to sell through as well, but you could definitely be making some more margin on products if you were keeping them full price right now before the summer holidays. But that transitional period is quite good. I think more, particularly if you're in kind of if you've got sort of term time in your heads, like particularly when you've got children and you want to make sure you've got uniform and everything sorted before you go away. So you kind of some of the stores you want to be seeing uniform, you want to be seeing socks, you want to be seeing coats, so you can buy it, get it all ready, enjoy your six-week summer holiday or whatever you're doing, or you're in in juggle your six-week holiday where you're trying to work and also look after the kids and get them in sports clubs and things. But have it all ready, you don't want that last week of August panic where it would actually make sense for those things to be in store because it's closer to that kind of that period of when you need it. So it's really juggling all those kind of mindsets, isn't it? But just back to the logistics piece, it is, as you say, so much harder to move around because you've got a date in for sale and a date that it's gonna go live. You've got products coming in, as you say, landing, and really that's about products taking up space in the warehouse. So you've got to push out your summer stock, it can't sit there, you've got to actually move through it super quick. So you've got them waiting in the wings, deliveries are coming in, they need the space to go out. They don't have the storerooms, aren't big enough, and as you said the other day, some stores don't have stock rooms, which absolutely I just can't I get being a lean machine, but as someone who's worked in stores that have got stock rooms, they are an absolute lifesaver at times when you need to move stuff around or your sales don't come in as expected, or things start moving quicker than you thought. Just having that reserve stock. I think I just like to have that reserve stock. Safety net. A safety net, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

But you have, you've got, you know, and you've got you'll live. I think it was more back to the fact that you know, this particular example is some stores aren't trading their stock hard enough, so it sits in the stock and it could be in another store. So having it all at a centralised depot makes more and having more frequent deliveries made more sense than having a stock room because you could trade the stock in the right places.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Yeah, make sure you've got your right stock in the right stores, yeah. Rather than then having to like say, Bob, can you drive to Scunthorpe? Which did happen. More stock. Yeah. We have people driving around sewing machines. Could you go and get another four sewing machines from Bournemouth? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

We this used happen with Christmas trees because you can imagine it's such a small window that uh you need to be like, if you haven't sold majority of your stock by, I think the biggest week something is something like end of November. That first that last week in November, the first week in December is like the biggest time. If you haven't sold like plenty of your Christmas trees, you've got to get them to the stores that are actually doing it, you know, doing it well.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

So yeah. That's another one that's so like linked to weather as well. Like how soon we start to get to buy into those kind of cosier seasonal bits. If we have that sort of like Indian summer in the September where it's still warm versus it actually it chills quite quickly.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Do you know what that always used to be a bit of a debate though? Because it is actually sometimes sensible to do a bit of a Christmas in July seasonal shop because it's so novel. Yeah. Because it's so hot outside, people are like, oh Christmas, especially someone like you, you know, like that is like fangirling Christmas 12 months of the year. It's like actually, but sensibly in what's going on around you, it doesn't make sense. So I can only imagine that seasonal space on most people's shop floors right now is up for so much debate. Like, should it be there? Yeah, should it be there? But also, we've had such a dramatic change in seasonal and our seasonal climate. Like, what is the right thing to go on there? And you're right, like, so many people are just like, but that's what we did, that's what we've done for the last 25 years. But actually, now we're moving into a climate where we have to be incredibly reactive. So that space needs to be really fluid, and it's gonna be it makes planning so hard, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Yeah, yeah, so much harder. Like, climate change is inevitably going to change retail forever. Like, we are definitely seeing much more volatile weather, seasons being quite shaped quite differently, and as you say, like seasonal products, like selling in at different different kinds of points. When you bring things in, those buying patterns are kind of moving all over the place somewhat, aren't they? And it and it's and it's scary in a way, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 13:42

Like, I think the first heat wave that we had was really scary. You remember we were we were at strategy day in London, and you could and we we were very luckily in a really beautifully air conditioned room in a in a in a in a in the heron tower. So it was like we were high up. We could see the like the sort of level of humidity, and it was just quite frightening to look at, wasn't it? Like to see, like, my god, our city is it's just melting.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

And it's one of those things where it's so hot and sunny at the moment, but it can't cope. I think that's part of the thing. Why I like it to be a little bit cooler, like you've got there. Like a 24 is like beautiful. So I find that the weather, like the heat gets too hot and it can't handle it, can't handle the heat, and then we'll have rain, and we'll probably then have a week of rain. So you go from these like sky-high temperatures, like these buying patterns are yeah, because when you think about rain, do you want to go shopping? Like, it's a bit inconvenient. Do you really want to go outside? Again, like sunshine. Well, on the one hand, you might want to be out and about, you might not want to be in stores, or to your point, you might for the air con. But when it's raining, on the one hand, you don't want to leave your house because you don't want to get out because you get soaked, but also going to a shopping centre is quite like a haven in a way, like it's a nice place to go when it's raining and you don't have to get wet and you can just spend your time in a shopping centre.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Yeah. Well, I mean, any any destination store or garden centre is brilliant for that.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

So the high street, I think, that really gets affected when it's raining, isn't it? I think you can see sort of like anything from sort of 10 to 30% of reduced high street footfall, depending on its location, but particularly when it's that heavy, heavy, heavy rain. But I can't imagine like grocery shopping is affected that much because it's essential.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Yeah, it's essential. Also, it's something that is really like innate online, you know.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Yeah, definitely. You just organise your delivery to still come. And also sometimes it's still a you just need to get the kids out of the house. Sometimes a shopping trip to the supermarket can be a good one.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Yeah, yeah. And I think we got quite used to that in COVID. I mean, I know my Saturday nights in wait rows were just like the highlight of the week.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I like what you said about like online and like with grocery shopping, because it has also become a lot more e-commerce for retail as well, like for buying fashion, accessories, and things like that. And I think sometimes when the weather's poor, you can be more likely to be sat inside, but potentially browsing online, sat on your phone. While we might see those physical shopping trips decline, actually online browsing, online conversion can actually improve. Yeah, definitely. Because I guess bad shopping, bad weather doesn't change shopping, it just changes the channel that people are buying from.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Yeah, definitely. And you know, it's a really obvious conversation, but we see the resale platforms having an absolute time of it at the moment, right? And obviously, weather is so helpful to them because as soon as the weather changes, people are putting their their their clothing online, their clothing up for resale, and the surge for that type of clothing is is so high, right? So we've talked about this so much about how buyers could really learn a lot from just looking at what's trending on vintage at the moment and looking at the data there. And I think it's just really interesting, isn't it, to see what's surging. I mean, right now I I can't stop looking for linen dresses, and like I can imagine that being their top search thing, and you know, it's it's very different to traditional retail because you can be incredibly it's an incredibly incredibly reactive platform in itself in its own organic environment. It's not anything that then needs actioning, it just does it naturally.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

That's quite it doesn't have any stockholders because it's down to the individual to be holding those products in their own house. So the back catalogue of products is huge on vintage. I mean, I actually don't know how many products are listed on vintage, but I can only imagine it is an insane amount of products that are sat live on that website, but they're not surfacing unless they're being searched for. So when you go to the home screen, you're seeing products that are being actively searched or they're linked to your most recent searches. You can put anything in and probably find it.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Yeah, exactly. So seasons overlap in a way they never can do in stores, right? So or even on a traditional retailer's website, it's like you can't buy you can't buy coats in July, you know, or maybe that's probably too late in the season because coats do start to come out in July. But you know, you can't, you know, it you can't have that array of seasonal stock all year round that you can on a resale platform.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Yeah, it's it's be clever with your pricing as well. If you were a savvy seller on vintage, you could see what's in demand, what's the weather forecast, the coat that hasn't had any likes or any interest, like all products that you've got in your wardrobe that you haven't listed yet, because you're like, oh, it's not the right time. Because you always see that. I find like sometimes when I'm trying to be prepared, you know, like ahead of time, like, oh, I'm gonna need to get some like black trousers or whatever for kids for school. And I'm searching and I'm not really finding anything right. But the closer I get to the time where people would traditionally buy them, they're listed. Yeah. The people hold on to things until close to the time. Or, for example, like Christmas products, they may have had them for years, but they've only they're not putting them. They've joined Lid, they've joined Vinted in May, they've got some Christmas products, but they're not going to list them yet because they know no one's gonna be buying Christmas yet until closer to Christmas. Yeah, yeah. Available in the summer. But actually, they can suddenly upload them and they can put them at a good price, knowing that actually there's not that much stock on there potentially because other people haven't listed it yet, and the people will be looking for it because rain is forecast and therefore they can put them up at a higher price.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Yeah, exactly. I mean, and and just this extreme weather creates wardrobe panic, doesn't it? You know, like I'm going away in a couple of weeks to France and it's gonna be like almost 40. And I'm like, what the hell am I gonna wear? Rolling vintage to try and find something. And then it's got me thinking, right, I've got a whole load of summer dresses that I don't wear, I'm gonna chuck those on just to make my money back, you know. And I think the vintage customer's becoming so much more savvy to that as well. Like, rather than just I'll put my wardrobe up and a couple of years later someone might buy it, or like it's there is so much more out there now about how you can make your money back. How yeah, like you say, flip flipping things as well, people buying designer brands, and because someone's not put it on for that much, and then getting it and then flipping it, it's it is such an incredible platform, really, isn't it? And there's so much we can learn from it. Yeah, people are being very active when they're selling on there, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Yeah, I loved what you said about wardrobe panic. I loved and hate what you said about wardrobe panic because oh my god, that's so mean me. And it's funny because you're talking about going on holiday, and in my mind, when I would go on holiday to somewhere that's nearer on 40, traditionally I'd be going somewhere where I'd just be on a beach all day. So I'm like, well, that's cool, bikini, whatever. Whereas when I've been at home and it's been hitting, I've been like, I've still got to do the school run, I can't do that in a bikini, I've still got to do work meeting meetings, I can't do that in a bikini. Like, so actually, my wardrobe panic has been like, how do I dress for that weather? But still do my day-to-day professional life, where you can't just wear nothing when that's all you really want to wear because it's so damn hot. You've still got to look smart, you've still got to look, yeah, professional.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Yeah, definitely. Do you remember when there was a memo that went round accessories because some of us were coming in and too skimpier? Our shorts were too short. Too short. Yeah. I mean, and it also creates that kind of what they say, you know, that one weekend effect as well. So you've got a wedding or a festival or A ski trip, you know, it is like you're buying something for one reason only, and then you're able to put it back on and buy something else for the next occasion. I think it's really making people think about what they're buying in the first place and whether it's able to be resold. So that's another new phenomenon that like another new way how people are buying now, and what's why it's so important for retailers to be producing really good quality clothing or really good quality products, because people are thinking about resale value as they're buying it.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Yeah, will it stand the test of time? So true. In fact, it was a guest that we had on Joe just a few weeks ago, and she was talking about how interesting it would be to see the stats for the rate of sale for products that are new or as good as new versus ones that are satisfactory. Yeah. Because exactly to that point. I mean, one, because people want something new, but also like for my kids, actually, I'd probably be like, especially when they were little, if it was satisfactory, it'd be fine because let's face it, they'd probably, especially when they're weaning, they'll probably get food all over it, mud all over it, dirt, or it's something you want for an occasion, you would be looking for something that is in those brackets. Yeah, no, definitely. It's crazy, isn't it? Because we have spent now a good 20 minutes, I'd say, talking about the weather, but we would never have this outlook if we were in a retail trade meeting. Like most retailers feel really quite uncomfortable acknowledging that the weather will affect their sales, or you were just not able to, you'd be shot down, you would get a very hard stare, yeah, you'd have a very uncomfortable, difficult conversation. And I think it's an interesting one. I always found it super frustrating. Like, why can we not not blame the weather but explain the reason the sales are down because of the weather?

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Yeah, I mean, you know, both of us have been seasonal buyers to not be able to mention the weather when you are buying seasonal categories is absolutely nuts. I think it's more about reframing it in a way that you're like, yes, this like you know, huge dump of snow has meant our stores are really hard to get to and people aren't shopping or being able to get in the car park without a shovel. Yeah. Yes, that has affected my sales. But this is what we're gonna try and do about it. This is how we're gonna try and improve next week, or this is how we're gonna try and get them to go online, or like, you know, it's a joint, it's not just about buying, it's a joint company effort when the weather's the the problem. And I think sometimes people are quite reluctant to join together and re and and you know, re like face into that, and it is quite hard, isn't it? When you're like, no, that it is a problem, we need to face into it. It's not something that's been predicted. So I I totally kind of I'm on like I'm on the fence with it, like in the sense that you can't just be like, yeah, the weather's affected my sales, end of. Like that's the that's all the commentary. That's the season, and we there's nothing we can do about it. It needs to be the weather's affected my sales. So what we're gonna do in response to it is X.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Totally agree, totally agree. Like, it's not enough just to say my sales failed because it rained. Like, you can't just use it. It sounds then like an excuse, yeah, and that you haven't done any more digging or you're not being proactive about it. So, yeah, I totally agree. There's a huge difference between just being like, Well, it rained, therefore, I didn't sell any umbrellas. Yeah, true. Which is yeah, you're not gonna sell umbrellas if it hadn't rained. But you could say, like, it has impacted sales, but this is what we're gonna do about it. This is how we're gonna like respond to it. This is these are the the actions that we're gonna take, whether they be pushing stock back, putting a promotion on, like again, though, that was always one where it was like you can't just put promotion on. Sometimes, sometimes that is as I think as long as you can pro prove, because promotions can work either way as well, like in the weather, right? On the one hand, for example, in the hot weather we're having, people are gonna buy ice cream. Yeah, so why put a promotion on so why put a promotion on? But at the same time, you've got demand there, people are wanting ice cream. So instead of just buying one box of ice cream, they might buy three or four boxes of ice cream if you've got a deal on it, if you've got a price saving on it, or if you've got that like that's where a multi-buy would probably work quite well. I went in the other day, only gonna go buy one pack, but I saw that they were an offer, and I was like, okay, let's buy four.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, just no, exactly, exactly. I think that is what's hard in that's what's hard in seasonal categories with higher uh special products with higher price points, because you're like, Oh my god, this is really great, easy cash margin. But what could I do if I put a promotion on? Oh, actually, that's really interesting. Let's do that, and especially when you have such small windows with these products, yeah. It's yeah, it I think that's where trading rooms become such a debate, don't they?

SPEAKER_00 27:13

They do, because I think also there's no no one's got a crystal ball, there's no right answer, and it's a bit like setting a budget, it's all based on assumptions, and it could go any which way, like you can't force consumers' hands, like it's likely to happen as long as you know the reasons why it did or it didn't, I often think, then it explains why, and then you can learn from that. But I think sometimes it it can be hard, particularly if you've got a retailer and so many of them are now, you know, you've got you've got investment behind it. It they're not always sort of like, and even when they're family-run businesses, you know, especially when you're a buyer, you're reporting up to the C-suite, you're reporting up to the leadership team, they still have to answer to the people above them, they have to answer above them, and the points need to become a lot clearer. And like you say, it can be a real debate in a trading room when you've got lots of people there and you can be discussing it, but you need to have one clear sentence outcome by the time it gets to the top.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and it's just always best to go into that room with a couple of different options because it's just the opinion of the person at the top, like you just said, that and it's not any rhyme or reasonable why what they're gonna what they're gonna choose, it's just their opinion. Yeah, definitely, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

So if you've got a stat like, I don't know, a particularly warm October and it's impacted your your sales of your your autumn winter range by say like 15%, that is gonna make people feel very uncomfortable because you've only got this stock for a certain window. So if they're just hearing, oh yeah, well, it was warm, so we didn't sell it, it's like okay, well, how resilient are we as a business? And are we just are we just completely dependent on what the weather does? Because that doesn't feel very safe, does it? If we're just like, well, you know, we'll just sales will go as sales will go, just see what the weather does, eh? Like when people are putting money into it, you kind of want to know well, what's gonna happen. And if you're not gonna see a return on on your investment here, then what are you gonna do? Like, how are you gonna turn that around? Like, well, actually, and promotions, as we've said, are a really, really difficult one to talk in in that moment as well, because I think quite often it feels like, well, obviously, if you put take money off, then it's gonna it's gonna move more, but you need to move enough. Like, are you gonna see the increase in sales enough to be able to drive that profit?

SPEAKER_01 29:40

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And then I think it goes even further into planning, right? For the next year, budgets. You cannot, it's the other way around, you cannot use the weather to plan a budget. It's just such a risky move. I think you have to strip it out, don't you? Well, you but you know, you've got your own figure of what you close what you closed on and the sales that you did that year, and you obviously want to increase them the next year, but it can't it has to be done with some foresight of why we had this spike. I mean, COVID's a really great example of what when businesses, but you know, certain businesses that were just kind of a bit naive and oblivious to the to the unprecedented circumstances, as we've mentioned so many times, and wanted to match that growth, but but challenged their challenged their staff to match it in some other way. And and it's it's nuts. And I think that this scenario that we're in at the moment is a really exact exactly the same as the example, really. Like you need to just make sure that you're not thinking really knee-jeck. You've got to have at least sort of three or four years of solid, you know, historical data before you make a gross assumption based on the weather.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Yeah, yeah. I'd suggest the other thing that you do as well is while you can't always report in trade that weather had a massive impact. I think it's always important to note what the weather was looking like in those weeks. So that if you do have any peaks when you're looking at setting your budget, you can say, okay, well, actually that week, let's bring that back down again. We're unlikely to see that. No, actually, I know we had promotion running at the same time, but it was probably not the promotion that spiked that quite as high. Like, let's let's soften that a little bit, like let's bring that back. And I think also starting to think, well, if there was a heat wave that week, what's the likelihood of that happening again? One, can we can we buy a bit more stock? Maybe not quite to the same levels, but we need to be prepared and how quickly can we get back into that stock? It's all kind of about sort of like I guess preparation, right? Being being prepared for whatever the scenario is, how quickly can you get back into it? Making sure that you know what your kind of the lead times on certain things are, and maybe doing your drops and making sure you can move things, trying to move things around, thinking about like looking at your WYSI when when do you have your stock coming in versus when you're expecting to see your sales peaks? And can you move those deliveries in or out? Can you get them in a little bit quicker or can you push them back a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Yeah, and I think it's probably more like more so than ever, you need like three exit plans scenarios. So as long as you've got that, then you're pretty, pretty safe. But it just also then goes back to this like overconsumption, right? As well, and what how where you stand as a business on that, and profits king, obviously, but there is it's that tricky one because you don't want to have an exit plan of just getting rid of just getting rid of things.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

And it's really, really hard, isn't it, to balance balance the books. And it's it's it's funny, and actually it goes back to the whole, you know, when it's going up the tree to kind of like the investors, when you all experience the same weather, and some retailers do better than others. And then the question is, okay, well, you're citing weather as a reason, and okay, you've got this action plan, but why have they outwinded and we've underperformed when we've all got the same product and we've experienced the same weather? I think that again comes back down to one the budgeting and two the planning. And for example, this scenario of you've got two supermarkets experiencing the same heat wave, one runs out of the bottom, and the other one had anticipated that demand and they doubled down the availability. So they had exactly the same weather, but completely different outcomes. And I think that's it. Like you say, it's the exit plan, but it's the preparation plan. Yeah, it's all planning. What is it? Plan to fail and fail to plan, fail to plan, to fail. Yeah. Never has it rung truer. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

I mean, I just yeah, and being a merchandise these days must be just incredibly challenging.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

We hear you, we see you. Going back to the promotions piece and when you put them on, and actually whether you should be driving more, and as you say, like actually, where do you sit on overconsumption and where do you sit with actually where, as you mentioned earlier, about having the right stock in the right places, so you don't want to move too much stock, you don't want to increase your availability too much, so then your stock's sitting in the wrong places if it doesn't come through. But it's interesting to think about actually what is the ROI on weather-driven promotions. Like, are they higher than your normal blanket promotions? Like, I would imagine that they probably are because your consumer demand is there, and then when you think about different types of weather, what do we think matters the most? Like, what is going to be the biggest impact on sales? Do you think it's temperature, rain, wind, or humidity? Rain. Interestingly, rain mainly affects where people shop. Ah, okay. Temperature changes what people buy.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Interesting, yes, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

So rain changes channel, temperatures changes demand. That's an interesting fun fact. You can take that into trade, everyone. Take that into trade. I think let's end on a light note. Should we end on a fun one?

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Let's end on a fun one.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

Okay, let's do it as a quick fire round. So, okay, rain or revenue. So which retailers will win or lose when it rains? Ready? Stores. Win fashion stores, lose, why stores? Win. Restaurants and cafes. Win. Garden centres. Win. Yay. Well, it's up to a debate, isn't it? What do you think? It is a bit yeah, it is a bit like one of those. What would you say? What would I say? Okay, hit me.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

Right, Kate, you're up next. Right. Which of these products is a gold mine or a nightmare in a heat wave? Ready? Okay, ready. Air conditioning and fans.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

A gold mine, but also a nightmare because I bet they haven't bought enough stock.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

You didn't make the rules, whether you were allowed to. Barbecues and picnic sales. Gold mine. Ice cream and cold drinks. Gold mine. Online shopping increases. No, nightmare. Staff well-being.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

Nightmare. Only because I think probably gold, like as a gold mine as in personally, when I see the sun, I am in such a good positive mood. Yeah. But trying to work in a heat wave or trying to, yeah, trying to work in a heat wave is so hard. You can't concentrate, you're too warm, unless you've got a very, very, very well air conditioned room, in which case you're probably feeling a little bit too cold and you can see the sun outside and it just feels really weird. So I say total nightmare.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 36:57

That is tough.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Okay, well, let's wrap it up and get out in the sunshine. That's a great idea.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

And I've really enjoyed being able to actually discuss the weather and the impact on sales. Oh, without feeling judged. I feel like, yeah, I feel like it's you know healed a lot of trauma from years of not being able to talk about the weather in trade.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

I just think as a former seasonal buyer, and I'm sure most people in like who don't buy seasonal categories see this, get this experiences as well. But you just have to go in with so many different potential options because nothing's right and nothing's wrong.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:35

You know, at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

Totally great.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

It's all subjective. You're either lucky or you're wrong. On that note. My colleague used to say it's better to be lucky than good. You know who you are. Right. We will see you next week for another exciting guest episode, actually. And yeah, looking forward to it. See you there. Have a great week. Bye.