Weather Impacts Holiday Season

January 3, 2010  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in on January 4, 2010 Planalytics Business Intelligence, which tracks weather's effect on retail sales and operations, has released an analysis of weather's impact on the 2009 holiday selling season.

* New Years Week (Dec. 27-Jan, 2)
The coldest New Year€„¢s Week since 2001 and the snowiest since 2000.  A winter storm that brought rain in the Southeast and snow/rain/ice in the Northeast over New Years Eve and New Years day had a negative impact on restaurants and retailers, but for most major cities in the I-95 corridor, this was more of a "nuisance" event compared to the Super Saturday Snowstorm. The cold helped drive post-holiday clearance of seasonal product.

* Christmas Week (Dec. 20-26)
While there was a major snowstorm in the Central Plains and Upper Midwest over Christmas, most of the country had cold conditions. Following the Super Saturday Snowstorm from the prior week, most consumers were out and about finishing up last minute shopping. A rain event along the I-95 corridor on Christmas Day/Dec. 26 posed some traffic difficulties for travelers and post-Christmas bargain hunters.

* Pre-Christmas Week with Super Saturday (Dec. 13-19)
This week will be remembered for the Super Saturday Snowstorm that walloped the east coast. Record breaking snowfall up the entire I-95 corridor made consumers stay home and shift demand out of one of the busiest days of the year. While there was a snowfall in some markets for Super Saturday 2008, (and December 2008 had more snow than December 2009), the impact for the historic 2009 event will be greater because of where and on how much of the population it snowed. Some but not all Super Saturday Sales were made up in time for Christmas, and a lot of business shifted from brick and mortar to online. Planalytics estimates that at least $2 billion was lost because of this storm as the industry as a whole was not be able to completely make up for so many lost shopping hours in so many heavily-populated centers.

* December Week 1 & 2 (Nov. 30-Dec. 12)
Following an unusually warm November, Mother Nature started to become more active in December with cold temperatures and wintry conditions across most of North America. While there were several weather events, most were limited in time and population. Most consumers had ample opportunity to shop.

* November
The warmest November since 2001 and driest since 1999 all had a negative impact on seasonal demand. At the end of the month, Black Friday weekend (Nov. 27-30) had optimal shopping weather and helped get the holiday season off to a great start.

* October
The coldest October since 1976 and the 3rd wettest in 115 years helped pull seasonal demand forward.  Retail sales responded with their most favorable comps in 18 months.