If consumer activity for a product is observed only at some point in time, they speak of strict seasonality. A striking example is Christmas tree decorations. They are eagerly sold out only on New Year's Eve.
There are goods or services for which demand exists for a longer period. This category includes, for example, tourism business. There are also products that are in demand in any month or season of the year. These are necessary food products, medicines, and household appliances.
What affects seasonality?
The level of consumer interest in products depends on various factors. These include:
- Seasons. With the onset of the next season, weather conditions change, which plays a significant role in fluctuations in demand. There are business sectors that are most susceptible to a decrease or increase in consumer activity depending on the time of year. This is, for example, the sale of street lighting equipment. It is carried out more successfully in winter. Soft drinks, on the other hand, sell out faster in the summer. And the need for various types of heaters appears with the onset of autumn cold weather. Then the demand for such equipment increases.
- Holidays and significant periods. For example, on the eve of March 8, you can count on more successful sales of jewelry and perfumes. IN flower business This is also the time when sales peak. Gifts are not usually given on May 1st. But the demand for food for picnics is increasing, because many people prefer to spend these days outdoors. Portfolios and school supplies are in great demand at the end of summer. Lent- a time when people buy less meat, and before Easter consumers stock up on eggs.
- Allocation of budget funds. Orders that are put forward state enterprises, are associated with large volumes of work. However, budget funds are allocated at certain periods. Typically the unit is a quarter. Therefore, payment for projects, which is carried out using budget funds, is made in most cases at the end of the quarter.
How to smooth out the seasonality factor
If it is not the season to run its business, the company tries to at least reduce costs. Sometimes drastic measures are taken. For example, staff quit. However, you can use other methods to help you stay afloat and even make a profit during this period.
An effective measure is diversification. In other words, efforts are being made to expand the range. If the business is based on producing knitted sweaters and selling them, it will be more successful during the cold season. In the summer you can make openwork napkins, tablecloths, soft toys. The demand for these things does not depend on the time of year.
Another method that allows you to keep your business at the desired level is discounts on goods that are not relevant this season. A classic example is the sale of clothing and shoes. Fur coats not purchased in winter can be sold cheaper in spring and summer. At the same time, profit will decrease by some percentage, but this way you can get rid of old products and replenish your assortment with new models.
All kinds of promotions are carried out with out-of-season goods. It is often sold “in addition” to what is currently in demand. You can attract a buyer by providing free services in case of purchasing out-of-season products. For example, helping with deliveries or installing equipment.
Many companies have a loyalty program that offers benefits to regular customers. Common options are a discount card and discounts depending on total cost purchases.
Seasonality can play a positive role in doing business or, on the contrary, reduce sales. However, in many cases there are opportunities to bypass it and turn the matter to your advantage.
Seasonality of demand is a phenomenon in which the demand for certain goods and services changes under the influence of external factors. Such factors may include: time of year, weather, events, periods of business activity and even days of the week. The simplest example: champagne and tangerines are in high demand during the New Year holidays, and by wedding photographers in the summer. The cycle is equal to one calendar year and all statistical indicators are maintained within this period.
Currently, in a fiercely competitive market, every entrepreneur relies only on his own resources and capabilities. Hoping to earn maximum profit, many businessmen rely on seasonal sales. And this is quite justified, because, as marketing statistics show, sales volume is directly related to a short-term rise or decline in consumer activity. Such fluctuations in consumer interest are usually called seasonality.
Seasonality is periodic changes in demand for a product, depending on certain factors, usually the time of year. However, seasonality is not always tied to any single factor. We can talk about the presence of seasonality only in the case when the maximum peak and decline in product sales is observed for 2-3 years in a row, and the difference in the cost of the product at the peak and decline in sales is 30-40%. Typically, the seasonal cycle is 12 months, although significant fluctuations in demand can be observed within one week or one day. However, such changes in consumer demand are not considered to be seasonal, since no changes are required to equalize demand. additional measures. It is enough for an entrepreneur to understand these market features and take them into account when planning business.
Types of seasonality
As a rule, there are two types of seasonality:
- production;
- consumer.
Demand for goods classified as seasonal depends on natural (climatic) factors. Classic examples of production seasonality:
- growing and selling fruits, vegetables and berries;
- earthmoving activities;
- work on landscaping garden plots.
However, it is worth noting that production seasonality related to the cultivation of agricultural crops is smoothed out due to the development and improvement of technologies for processing, storage and procurement of products, as a result of which the entrepreneur has a unique opportunity to sell his goods throughout the year.
Consumer seasonality is directly related to the following important factors:
- Time of year.
As is known, significant fluctuations in consumer demand are associated with seasonal changes climatic conditions. For example, in the spring people begin to prepare for the summer season and the demand for summer things reaches quite a high level. In addition, in spring period many people consume maximum quantity foods rich in vitamins: juices, fruits (mainly citrus fruits), vegetables. Also at this time, various construction and agricultural equipment are in great demand. - Holiday period.
Everyone knows that the time for gifts is coming closer to New Year's holidays. On most trading platforms the maximum peak of sales is recorded in the first winter month. As a rule, the most profitable market at this time is considered to be the market for gifts, Christmas tree decorations, various drinks, food products, clothing, cosmetics and household appliances. The Easter holiday has a particularly serious impact on food sales. During the Easter Lent, various social events, for example, weddings and corporate parties, are significantly reduced. Accordingly, the demand for wedding services is significantly decreasing, and the sales of meat and alcohol products are decreasing. Accordingly, the level of sales of eggs, fish, cottage cheese, vegetables and many types of grain products is increasing. The next peak in sales occurs in the last winter and first spring months. It is in February and March that the main men's and women's holidays are celebrated: February 23 and March 8, respectively. If consumers begin purchasing New Year gifts at the end of November, then the demand for gifts for men and women begins to increase 2-3 weeks before the holiday date. - Other significant dates.
Another period of high sales occurs at the end of August - beginning of September, i.e. back to the beginning academic year. The maximum peak in sales occurs in last days August. At this time, the greatest demand for school products is: notebooks, pens, pencils, textbooks, rulers, backpacks and other school and stationery, as well as clothing and shoes. - Business activity.
General business activity is one of the most important factors, which can significantly affect sales levels. Business activity is not only the ratio of people vacationing and working in a certain period, but also the general atmosphere and mood that stimulates people to work or relax. Marketers note 3 periods of decline in business activity throughout the year. Such periods are: - end of December; - mid-January; - summer months. Of the above, the greatest decline is considered to be the period of New Year and Christmas holidays, when most people have 10 days off. The “May holidays” have a rather serious impact on sales volumes. Despite the fact that there are only two days off during this period (May 1 and May 9), a fairly noticeable decline in sales is regularly observed in all markets. In addition, a large percentage of consumers go on vacation at this time of year. Also, low business activity is recorded from March to April and from October to November. - The influence of budgetary possibilities.
As a rule, many state-owned companies have fairly strict budgeting frameworks. The main task of budgeting is the competent, systematic organization of work activities. However, as practice shows, this results in a situation where at the end of the year (quarter) clients of these companies need to “master” the budget and they spend a lot of money on purchases. Often, thanks to such clients, most trading companies experience a peak in sales. But there is a “but” here: there is a big decline in the first quarter of the year, because during this period the new budget has not yet been approved and, as a result, funding has been closed.
It is no secret for entrepreneurs that coping with the problems of seasonality is very difficult. This task requires additional financial investments, which many companies cannot afford. Only a self-confident entrepreneur who has a well-thought-out business plan and has the ability to take such measures can take sufficient quantity means to resolve this issue.
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Seasonality of requests is fluctuations in website traffic that depend on external factors.
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Probably the most eloquent example will be with decorations for Christmas trees. This holiday occurs once a year for 99% of people. Glass balls, stars and Santa Clauses interest everyone for a maximum of two months.
Products for summer holidays, such as swimsuits and inflatable mattresses, can be used in winter: some go to resorts in warm countries, others go to the pool. But in general, they can also be classified as categories with unstable demand.
What is the seasonality?
Seasonality is periodic changes in demand associated with a number of conditions. It is customary to distinguish the following:
- Time of year.
- Holiday periods (February 23, March 8), other popular dates (September 1).
- Business activity throughout the year (holiday season, long winter and spring weekends, etc.).
- Principles of annual budget planning by government organizations, when allocated funds need to be spent within a year-limited period.
Features of SEO promotion of sites with seasonal products
Yandex and Google began to display the seasonality of queries in statistics so that optimizers could take into account the peaks of growth and decline in traffic when working with sites.
Search engine optimization is a large, multi-step set of tasks, many of which are interrelated. It will not take a month or two to implement it, often it will take a year or more. Therefore, you need to take into account that those goods and services that are subject to seasonality have their own rules for promotion.
- Getting your website to the top should be continuous. You cannot take up New Year's toys in November, finish work on them in January and do not open your resource for a year. This will inevitably lead to loss of positions and all previous work will be useless.
- If your products have a low season, it makes sense to think about additional product groups or alternative sources of income. To compensate for the drop in revenue.
- If there is no desire or opportunity to work in other categories, it is still necessary to work on the website. During a period when incoming traffic drops and thereby behavioral factors, citations, links and other important attributes sharply deteriorate due to irrelevance, at a minimum the content should be updated.
At least publish some news. Look for topic-related materials, order articles on the topic of why it is profitable to buy skis in the summer. Connect the topic with resorts and tourism, choose catchy headlines - and people will read you. Search engines will appreciate the effort because they take into account the date the material was updated, traffic stability, etc.
- The seasonality factor is one of the analytical parameters that helps to more accurately assess periods of growth and decline in traffic and the reasons for these jumps.
Given the relevance of your products, you can forecast traffic fluctuations for several years. This will help in analyzing business processes and in the correct, informed selection of optimization tools and methods for a given month. Simply put, it will help you adjust your website promotion plan. - You will see in advance when, for example, the launch of advertising is relevant, and you will have time to thoroughly prepare. Due to lack of planning, there is often not enough resource for this, which greatly deteriorates the quality of advertising campaigns and, as a result, efficiency.
How to check the seasonality of a request
Yandex and Google have developed tools in which you can track trends and what is in fashion at the moment.
Yandex
Open the Yandex Wordstat service - https://wordstat.yandex.ru/.
The first step is to select a region. The system collects data on different countries, if you don’t do this, you will get “hospital average” statistics, which may differ significantly from the local ones.
Click on the “+” icon, a list of regional units will open, select the ones you need, there may be several of them.
Click the “Select” button and make sure the selected geolocation appears.
Select Query History (enter captcha if required).
Now you can enter queries of interest into the search bar.
Let's take an example: working as Santa Claus.
By moving the sliders at the top, you can configure the total period for which you want to receive data.
On the graph we see the peak for 2017; the current one is compared with the peak before 2018.
A rise in demand is expected once a year.
You can see the number of requests in the context of different media from which visits were made: desktops, mobiles, phones only, tablets only.
The “Desktops” slice includes queries on desktops and laptops, and the “Mobile” slice includes queries on phones and tablets.
Data analysis is possible using absolute and relative indicators.
To obtain a relative value, the absolute figure is normalized by the number of impressions of Yandex search results for the corresponding month.
It should be remembered that this Yandex seasonality report does not take into account the operators “! “or ““”, respectively, does not return the exact number of queries, counting the broadest matches.
Google Planner
The Google system also has a service for assessing traffic dynamics. You need to log in to the system and enter the Scheduler keywords adwords.google.ru/KeywordPlanner
There we select the section “Getting query statistics and trends”.
We set the settings for geography, targeting, period, negative keywords.
Click the “Find out the number of requests” button.
Google statistics displays exact queries over a period of time, and you can find out the level of competition.
Overall, both graphs complement each other and cross-sectional data can be used to analyze trends, periods of activity and decline.
Google Trends
Another tool that allows you to assess the relevance of search queries.
By setting various settings: region, period, categories, you will get statistics for the desired request.
You can select several and get a comparative analysis.
The impact of seasonality of demand on business
If we consider this topic in the context of a new business, understanding what queries are popular in a particular period of time, you can create a highly specialized website, prepare in advance advertising campaign and make money on this topic.
One of the advantages of promotion can be called low competition - this is an unstable income, and not all companies are interested in such a work scheme.
Less effort is needed to fill the site with content - after all, it is not so big.
Seasonal queries are usually popular among users - New Year relevant for everyone.
Adapting a company to new realities can also be considered as a business idea to increase profits during a period of declining demand.
- This is a good incentive to reform the sales department.
- Review communication scenarios between managers and customers.
- Expand the assortment list.
- Sell companion products and related products.
In any case, careful analysis is required before passing a verdict that you are in the off-season.
Perhaps the problem is not so much with natural factors of customer churn, but with artificial ones. For example, competitors have become more active, an analogue product has appeared, etc.
Surely, the dependence on the factors defined above as seasonal can only be identified on a sample over a period of several years, preferably at least three, if this is a stable trend. Fluctuations in sales associated with changes in daily and monthly activity are also noted, but these factors do not relate to seasonality and are not taken into account when drawing patterns.
Some people see problems, while others see new opportunities. Understanding what seasonality of demand is and how it affects your industry will help you prepare in a timely manner. effective plan actions.
Prepare your sleigh in the summer. This folk wisdom, well known to everyone since childhood, acquires special implications for business owners. It is believed that seasonal lull is natural and inevitable.
Each product has its own season
It is difficult to name a business that would not be influenced by the time of year on production and sales volume. The factors that shape these types of market trends are numerous: ranging from trivial weather conditions to religious fasts.
Sales of consumer goods in the summer are less active due to vacations and trips to the countryside.
Entrepreneurs planning their business in seasonal conditions, are required to pay attention to detail, and even for obvious trends, accuracy in calculations sometimes plays a key role.
Let's start with “nice” products that are especially popular in the summer:
- Ice cream- an undisputed favorite among summer delicacies, as well as a textbook example of seasonality. According to Romir, 77% of Russians admit that they like to eat ice cream in the heat.
- Russian kvass- also an extremely seasonal product. In January, less than 4% of households bought this drink at least once. However, already in May the share of such families increased to 22%, and in June it was already 28%. It is noteworthy that Muscovites consume kvass more often than residents of other major cities: 42 and 7.36% respectively. In general, the tendency is that what bigger city, the more popular this soft drink is. People aged 35-44 years drink kvass the most during picnics.
- Along with kvass, the demand for bottled water- 47% of households bought it in June versus 32% in January.
- Sales soar in summer beer. In June - July they increase by 15%. At the same time, people are beginning to give preference to drinking beer on fresh air, while in winter they consume it mainly indoors.
- At the same time, the summer season is traditionally characterized by a decline in sales chocolate products. Thus, with the onset of warmer weather, the volume of consumption of candy bars decreases - in June, the share of buyers of this product was 22.5 versus 25% in May.
- And the ranks of lovers chocolates in boxes thinned from 10% in May to 8% in June.
- During hot weather there is a reduction in consumption coffee. For example, in Moscow in July - August, the volume of home consumption of this drink decreased by 31% compared to May - June. The same figure for last year was 11%. A similar situation was observed in St. Petersburg, where coffee sales fell by 39% and 21%.
- Sales volumes decline in summer dairy products(although sales of milk-based refreshments with added juice are growing).
- At the same time, prices for eggs.
- Many of us use chapstick, whose sales volumes are also subject to seasonality. In January, in large Russian cities, 3% of households buy this lip product, in May - about 2%, and in December - almost 5%.
- Member of the board of directors of the Romir holding and president of the Guild of Marketers Igor Berezin added to this list tires, which are sold exclusively in April - May and October - November, and it is almost impossible to get anyone to buy them in August.
- He also draws attention to the fact that sales meat population during Lent fall by 10-12%.
- Guild President bakers and confectioners Marina Lyutikova said that January and February are a low season for her market segment. Revival occurs only in March. The peak of sales of bakery products occurs in May, when people leave to live in the country.
Summer recession for business
Despite the fact that seasonality for each market its own, general trends can be identified. Sales of consumer goods are less active in the summer, including due to vacations and trips to the country, warns Igor Berezin.
Indeed, if we look at the statistics of the Romir holding, we will see: the expenses of Russians in June - July decreased both in absolute and in relative terms. In June, costs for purchasing food and consumer goods decreased by 9.5% compared to May, and in July - by 7.5% compared to June.
It should be remembered that excess heat in summer makes seasonal trends more pronounced. It allows you to trace market trends and consumer habits that have become aggravated in extreme conditions. There is no talk of any consumer revolution, and the data obtained is easy to use when planning sales, adjusted for less hot weather.
