Super Saturday, meet Winter Storm Dylan
Here’s what retailers are doing about the weather this weekend
Super Saturday — or Panic Saturday — is the last Saturday before Christmas. For many Americans who still haven’t done their seasonal shopping, it’s a crucial, final opportunity to pick up gifts at their favorite retailer. And for retailers it accounts for billions in sales. This year, it falls on December 23, the day before Christmas Eve.
That’s just one of the reasons why the recent emergence of Winter Storm Dylan is pretty inconvenient. According to The Weather Channel, the storm is already bringing snow to the mountain West, northern Plains and upper Midwest and will eventually spread into New England by late this week. Precipitation may persist into Saturday night from the Appalachians into upstate New York and northern New England.
For more on what this means for retailers, we spoke with Paul Walsh, director of weather strategy at IBM Global Business Services.
How important is Super Saturday for retailers?
It’s a huge shopping day and it typically rivals Black Friday in terms of sales. The difference between Black Friday and Super Saturday, though, is that there’s a lot of online shopping on Black Friday, because you can order something and not worry about it arriving after Christmas. But Super Saturday is so close to Christmas this year that people have to actually go to the store to buy things. That makes the weather even more important that on Black Friday.
Could the weather keep lots of people home on Saturday?
There’s a very large percentage of people who wait until the last minute to go shopping. But because it’s the last minute that means they’re more motivated to go shopping even if the weather is lousy. The weather is definitely going to be a factor but I don’t think it’s going to be enough to move the needle greatly as it pertains to holiday shopping this weekend.
But the weather will still impact some important business decisions for retailers this weekend, right?
That’s right. One of those decisions is inventory. Retailers can use the weather forecast to understand what people are likely to be looking to buy. So based on those predictions, they can make sure they’re moving the kind of products people are going to be looking for to the front of the store. And they can do that based on geography. The people in Colorado and the people in the Midwest are going to experience completely different conditions. In Colorado, it will be dry but almost dangerously cold. So that means the people making it into the department stores in Denver are going to be buying parkas, hats and gloves.
Will the weather impact retail marketing strategy as well?
Sure. Retailers can look at the weather forecast and then serve up ad messages that say, “Hey, the weather is going to be crappy on Saturday. Why don’t you come in today instead?”
Weather also impacts peoples’ emotions. So marketers can use forecasts to help align their message to how they think people will be feeling. It’s one thing to be overt and say, “Hey, it’s raining, you need an umbrella.” Marketers have been doing that since time immemorial. But now we have the data and communications capabilities to be much more sophisticated.
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