Weather Forecasting for Retail

On rainy days, storefronts bustle with umbrellas. Gloves, hats, and candles sell best when it’s cold outside. Soft drinks, ice cream, and fans get swooped from the shelves when it’s hot. Severe weather events can disrupt supply chains and cause abrupt changes in consumer behavior.

Retailers not yet using weather insights may miss out on opportunities to boost sales and efficiency: let’s discuss why the forces of nature should not be underestimated when managing a retail business.

The Impacts of Weather on Your Retail Business

The weather can affect your business in unexpected ways. A change in the forecast can cause your sales to drop. Say, if temperatures rise, the demand for certain products is expected to skyrocket. These include soft drinks, bottled water, ice cream, sunscreen, or bug spray. If you keep track of the incoming weather changes, you’ll be able to stock up on just the right products or adapt your pricing accordingly.

Even the most thought-out strategies out there aren’t weatherproof. The weather could impact shipping: events such as rain, snow, or hail can cause heavy delays in delivery time. Certain weather conditions could even pose direct hazards to your business. One can never rule out destructive natural disasters such as floods and hurricanes; knowing one is coming can be life-saving.

Minimizing Seasonal Risks

If you have the weather data on your hands in advance, you can minimize the risks that weather could have on your business. Knowing a forecast and understanding how to prepare around it can help you mitigate several problems often faced by retailers:

• Shipping delays
• Overstocking
• Understocking

In the retail industry, customer satisfaction is king: unhappy customers aren’t a good look for your brand. Delivering a positive and satisfying customer experience will improve your business and keep consumers coming back for more.

Employing weather data to plan for potential hurdles is a great way to gain customer satisfaction. Minimizing risks associated with weather is always challenging because of the many variables you could face, but it’s imperative to have a plan for any potential scenario. Working around a weekly forecast isn’t ideal, but there are more advanced options for you to consider. Take seasonal forecasting, for example. Leveraging seasonal forecasts can provide insights into preparing for the next several weeks or months.

Reviewing and understanding the seasonal forecast will allow you to put products on relevant shelves according to the forecast. Is the snow coming down earlier than expected? Bring out those winter coats! You could also take products off the shelves or slash prices to eliminate old inventory.

Nowcasting for Heat-of-the-Moment Decisions

Sometimes, the weather changes unexpectedly in a matter of minutes. Up until recently, you couldn’t do much to react in time. Today, there is a solution in the form of nowcasts (short-term forecasts). They are typically minute-by-minute precipitation forecasts extending two hours into the future.

Meteum uses machine learning to correct its nowcasts on the fly: our algorithms collect live data from a multitude of sources and constantly receive user reports. The best part? Our nowcasts are outstandingly precise and relentlessly hyperlocal, showing weather predictions accurate to the individual building.

The weather can negatively impact your sales if you allow nature to take its course. However, you can count on a positive result when predicting risks adequately. While there’s no doubt that weather data plays an essential role in the retail sector, it’s generally not taken into account or not weighted enough in sales forecasts. Thinking around the forecast will give you a competitive advantage and drive sales.

Step ahead of your competitors with our customizable, AI-driven weather forecasting platform. Meteum helps retail companies foresee weather-related sales trends and increase revenue. Use Meteum API to plan sales, estimate supply, predict demand, optimize prices, and adjust your advertising campaigns based on weather information. Visit meteum.io to get your free API key and try it out!