The leading example for a seasonal business is the retail business that earns a large percentage of its annual profits during the holiday shopping season.
American Demographics magazine had an interesting study of seasonal businesses (“The Seasons of Business”, Wilson, Richenda, May 1992) listing all the predictable events that can influence sales in every month of the year:
- January is a good month for diets and self-help books and programs.
- February is generally the slowest month of the year, but it does have Valentine’s Day, which triggers a lot of business for flowers, gifts and last minute online shoping.
- In March, attendance at church and other religious activities jumps 60 percent.
- April is the month to market household cleaners and other spring cleaning products.
- May features Mother’s Day.
- June features a lot of family activities, such as weddings, graduations, and vacations.
- July is the best month for all summer products.
- August used to be the busiest business and pleasure travel month of the year. To be seen if this remains true (numbers are from pre-9/11 and pre-credit crunch.
- September features back-to-school sales, while October is full of marketing activities thanks to Halloween and the sports events like the World Series.
- November and December are the biggest months of the year for almost every retailer thanks to the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays including Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Christmas, and New Year’s.
The recent GPSies GPS tracker Application downloads (and usage stats) show that GPS logging is likely to be a summer product too.
The above graph shows GPSies downloads (they are proportional to the total sessions and sessions by user), the Google trend for GPS logging and the average temperature in Germany over time.
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Very interesting article. Having personal experience in this field, I have found that Spring and Fall are the busiest months for GPS tracking usage.