FORECAST NEWS
Gaining a competitive advantage
by Service Dealer Editor, Steve Gibbs
 
Steve Gibbs

You may notice we're running a Weather Watch feature again today - giving the general forecast for the week ahead and looking back at some historical weather facts for this week in years gone by.


If you would like an up to date forecast for your specific area, you can head over to the brand new Service Dealer website and pop your location details into the fancy widget on there. Every time you then return to the site, you'll get a current forecast tailored for you.


Why this fixation on the weather? Well, it's the way it always has been for this sector. It's kind of a cliché, but certainly a truism, that the quality of a season is dictated much more on the weather, rather than the current economic or political situation the country finds itself in.


However, what I'm not saying is there's only one type of weather that's guaranteed for a cracking period of sales. When I insinuated something along those lines recently I received a very well-articulated comment from a dealer reader saying, "I appreciate that for many dealers their bread and butter is most definitely grass cutting equipment. But I think it is worth pointing out that all weathers provide opportunity for dealers to solve different problems. Especially for commercial customers.


"There are many applications for outdoor power tools that do not involve cutting grass at all, and where the dire weather actually represents a great opportunity to sell other machines; forestry, hard surface maintenance, snow and ice removal and highway maintenance are all markets that actually improve when the weather is adverse.


"With so much opportunity in every season should a dealer really place all his hope on a small weather dependent grass season?"


A very eloquently phrased argument and one which I certainly wouldn't want to argue against. What we can take from it though, is that arming oneself with knowledge of weather patterns can be of great benefit to specialist dealers. The ability to react quickly to changing conditions is a privilege which the independent sector enjoys over the mass channels.


And it's a privilege which certainly needs to be taken advantage of by bricks and mortar retailers to make sure they continue to position themselves as a true alternative to online purchasing.


This seems more important than ever going by the most recent statistics for online sales in the UK. According to the latest figures from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index, UK online retail sales grew by an impressive +18.9% year-on-year in March. This apparently marks the highest year-on-year growth since November 2016.


The analysts cite a number of key factors as helping drive the month’s online sales - interestingly starting with the continued cold weather from the ’beast from the east’ and ending with the early Easter bank holiday. Weekly analysis showed that growth doubled in the final week over Easter - surging from a steady +13% to +27%.


Andy Mulcahy, who is a strategy and insight director at IMRG, says, “It’s possible to read this month’s results as a simple story of online continuing to benefit from the decline of the high street - which is nothing new of course, but it may be that we are seeing an acceleration of this as we’ve moved into 2018.


"At the same time it could just be a blip - Easter falling in March will likely have pushed up online growth (and, by extension, it may come in far lower in April) plus the weather has at times brought heavy snowfall and prolonged rainfall."

 

So whilst the analysts can't offer a solid reason as to why there has been this surge recently, or indeed how sustained it might be, all dealers will know that online sales are presenting a clear and present danger to physical retail spaces who are not switched on to the competition.


Therefore, every play in the book which sets apart expert, servicing dealers from box-pushers on the internet, must be readily employed. Reacting to changing weather conditions can be just one of these tools which can offer an advantage.

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In this issue
EDITOR'S BLOG
FORECAST NEWS
NEWS
HUSQVARNA GROUP ACQUIRE SHARE OF FRANKLIN ROBOTICS
MORRIS CORFIELD OPEN NEW BRANCH
AGCO ACADEMY APPRENTICES COLLECT AWARDS
WALKER MOWERS APPOINT NEW ASM
RVW PUGH CONTINUE MASSEY CELEBRATIONS
DEALER OFFERS FIRST AID TO CORNWALL AIR AMBULANCE
KIOTI APPOINT NEW ASM
IBCOS LAUNCH NEW MOBILE APP
KUBOTA UK APPOINT CAROUSEL
WEATHER WATCH
JOBS
UNI-POWER
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BIG ONLINE ADVANTAGE FOR DEALERS
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March / April 2018
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