“Boy, it’s raining outside. I wish I could have spent my time outside riding my bike but instead I’m stuck inside. I guess I have nothing better to do than to putz around the local electronics store for an hour or two for no reason before leaving without purchasing anything.”
Which is what often happens at my store. People will go into a store and just meander around looking at the same stuff they saw the last time they were in and wandering around (which probably occurred less than a week prior to their current visit). If they do end up buying anything, it’s a CD or a DVD, and it’s probably one they only bought because they wanted to justify their trip out to the store.
“Well, I didn’t really like Rambo 3 but I did just waste forty-five minutes of my day off here, soooooo… I better make it worth it.”
God forbid you should’ve spent the time you wasted by doing something productive at home. People seem to have a real desire to not be at home as much as possible. They’d rather waste time at a store for no real reason other than not be at home. Me, I wish I had the time to waste just petering around a store for endless amounts of time. If it was my day off and the weather was crappy, I’d spend most of my day in bed reading, or writing, or, at the very least, watching DVDs or shows I recorded on my DVR.
“Man, I have a hundred DVDs and I’ve only watched twenty of them, but none of the rest seem to be appealing to me at this moment. Guess I should go buy another DVD!”
But people in this day and age can’t seem to be bothered with reading a book it seems.
You would think that I’d prefer it to be busy on the rainy days because it might mean less people on sunny days, but that is not the case, friends. I want it to be busy enough on the sunny days so time goes by faster and I don’t feel so bad for missing out on the beautiful weather. On the crappy days, people in my store tend to be more laidback and have a better time. They might be stuck indoors at work but at least they’re not missing much outside.
The concept of ‘retail sunshine’ is just part of retailing-by-weather-report that take place each day at my store.
“Oh, it’s sunny and warm outside – it’s going to be a busy day, today!”
“Hey, it’s raining outside – looks like we’re going to get some good traffic in!”
Why don’t you just say, “Hey, there’s a 50/50 chance we’ll be busy today,” instead? There will be those who prefer to shop when it’s raining and those who prefer to shop when it’s sunny outside. You can’t predict what type of day it’ll be at your retail store based on the weather. People are INSANE and will shop whenever they want to because they would rather waste their lives away inside a store, looking at products they will probably never buy, than to explore their neighborhoods, read books, etc., etc.
Or just stay home and keep reading this blog. See, this is even better than going out to get some DVD you’ll never end up watching more than once. Just sit back and laugh at the others that I meet. Besides, look at all that retail sunshine outside. Do you really want to go out in that?
More soon from the frontlines…
Yes I saved so much money reading instead of shopping! Or should I say browsing!
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