We recently asked two of our members here at The Candy Factory how the cold weather impacts their business. For many companies, business gets as slow as molasses as the seasons change and the wind picks up. People want to go to work, come home, and not do much else other than that. Let’s see what the results were…
Randall Hertzler of euroSource said:
“This is an interesting question for euroSource because well over 75% of our revenue occurs during the fourth quarter. And it really is even more pronounced than that – we can narrow it to after the second week in November to approximately a week before Christmas. There is some variation simply because of where the weekends fall.
This really is not a surprise because most of our revenue comes from online retail toys and Christmas is by far the most popular time of year when money is spent on toys. Our relationships with Kathe Kruse of Germany and Anker Steinbaukasten of Germany are the two primary revenue producers. We start preparing towards the end of summer in September making our estimates for inventory and pricing strategies. Since we often must wait for containers to arrive from Europe, this process must be complete before October rolls around or we risk not having product when it is needed most.
Parke Brown took a more personal approach:
Personal:
- Less air travel in snow seasons due to less-predictable air travel
- Storms can mean more work at home and less networking (i.e. less time at the fabulous Candy Factory!)
People I’ve Known:
- National: More work and possibly more mobile work during storm season for hail repair and roof repair businesses
