Gone very quiet
Discussion
Anyone else noticed a big drop off in trade the last couple of weeks over and above all the COVID issues?
This year has been a very bad for many people but we have tried to battle through but the last 3 weeks I have seen a big down turn.
My year on year is looking like:
Jan +26%
Feb -74%
Mar +7%
Apr -58%
May -53%
Jun -4%
Jul -5%
Aug -76% <<<<< OUCH!
Jan and Feb are very quiet months for us so easy to get big swings if we have 1 busy week. We do 90% of our business March to October.
The rest of the year much more accurate as many more data points.
This year has been a very bad for many people but we have tried to battle through but the last 3 weeks I have seen a big down turn.
My year on year is looking like:
Jan +26%
Feb -74%
Mar +7%
Apr -58%
May -53%
Jun -4%
Jul -5%
Aug -76% <<<<< OUCH!
Jan and Feb are very quiet months for us so easy to get big swings if we have 1 busy week. We do 90% of our business March to October.
The rest of the year much more accurate as many more data points.
jammy-git said:
Mr Overheads said:
Not even vaguely in the same sector, but I'm finding almost everyone seems to have gone on holiday (might be staycations, but certainly not working)
I think this could explain it. Everyone trying to get some sort of holiday in before schools go back/second wave hits/more lockdowns/redundancy.Do you break down revenue into any sub-categories? Anything you can look into to see where exactly you've lost sales or whether it's just right across the board?
Phones are quiet, account holders are dead too. Easily 80% down.
Jan +26%
Feb -74%
Mar +7%
Apr -58%
May -53%
Jun -4%
Jul -5%
Aug -61%
Sep -29%
September worse than I expected.
I think trade is going to fall off a cliff the next 3 months. We already seen sales calls down about 50% (beyond normal) this week so far.
E commerce is still up but everything else is down, way, way down.
Feb -74%
Mar +7%
Apr -58%
May -53%
Jun -4%
Jul -5%
Aug -61%
Sep -29%
September worse than I expected.
I think trade is going to fall off a cliff the next 3 months. We already seen sales calls down about 50% (beyond normal) this week so far.
E commerce is still up but everything else is down, way, way down.
I think we need to give it another couple of weeks to see if this is a trend or just a blip but our phones have stopped ringing and the ecom has slowed right down too.
I think you are right though, a lot of people will stop spending this month as the uncertainty of the end of furlough kicks in then its Christmas and of course add into all that we are looking at some kind of second lock down.
I think you are right though, a lot of people will stop spending this month as the uncertainty of the end of furlough kicks in then its Christmas and of course add into all that we are looking at some kind of second lock down.
Once we get into October sales volumes fall so its hard to say exactly where we are but for now trade looks to be about normal for the time of year. We did however bank a couple of jobs from early Sept into Oct which we did because of how quiet August was and did not want to fall into the same trap.
Nov-Feb is dead for us anyway so once we get this month done we are basically done for the year.
I suspect Oct will be +/- 5% normal.
Nov-Feb is dead for us anyway so once we get this month done we are basically done for the year.
I suspect Oct will be +/- 5% normal.
Well closing in on the end of our first month of 2021 and its not great news.
We are 90% down on our average turn over for January.
Even with it being our quietest month of the year due to the seasonal variation in the business the last time we turned over this little was 2010 when we had -18c and 3 feet of snow on the ground.
We have not had the best weather which is fair enough but one thing we have noticed is our big trade customers have not returned after the November lock down.
Speaking to other businesses in the local area who are in the same ish line of work as us and they are reporting similar.
Another big negative we have seen this month is prices, we have seen suppliers creep their prices up.
We are 90% down on our average turn over for January.
Even with it being our quietest month of the year due to the seasonal variation in the business the last time we turned over this little was 2010 when we had -18c and 3 feet of snow on the ground.
We have not had the best weather which is fair enough but one thing we have noticed is our big trade customers have not returned after the November lock down.
Speaking to other businesses in the local area who are in the same ish line of work as us and they are reporting similar.
Another big negative we have seen this month is prices, we have seen suppliers creep their prices up.
Jan and Feb were write offs for us. Very slow indeed.
March saw a massive uplift. Had a pretty good march, best we have had in years tbh.
Then April came along and the work dropped off quite quickly and never really got going again.
I think we are going to be c.50% down for April - which is really bad as we make our money in April, May and June. So a bad start to the season, and IME running a seasonal business for many years if you have a bad start you never recover so thats 2021 written off already.
On the logistics side we are still seeing supply chain issues, although perhaps slightly better the last couple of weeks. We are now running at c.90% stock now where as in March we were as low as 20-30% at one point and several lines were totally out of stock. Some good planning and a bit of luck and we are now full again.
The bottom line is I think we have a few big issues now.
1. Sites and contractors are slowly clearing the decks now and no new work coming in
2. People are more keen to spend their money in pubs and shops
3. Possibility of holidays - people are saving their money now
4. Furlough end date is slowing creeping up and I think people who are still on now their job is going to be gone
5. Housing market cooling and most sales that were kicked off in summer 2020 are now complete
6. Longer term financial disaster is a possibility over next few years
March saw a massive uplift. Had a pretty good march, best we have had in years tbh.
Then April came along and the work dropped off quite quickly and never really got going again.
I think we are going to be c.50% down for April - which is really bad as we make our money in April, May and June. So a bad start to the season, and IME running a seasonal business for many years if you have a bad start you never recover so thats 2021 written off already.
On the logistics side we are still seeing supply chain issues, although perhaps slightly better the last couple of weeks. We are now running at c.90% stock now where as in March we were as low as 20-30% at one point and several lines were totally out of stock. Some good planning and a bit of luck and we are now full again.
The bottom line is I think we have a few big issues now.
1. Sites and contractors are slowly clearing the decks now and no new work coming in
2. People are more keen to spend their money in pubs and shops
3. Possibility of holidays - people are saving their money now
4. Furlough end date is slowing creeping up and I think people who are still on now their job is going to be gone
5. Housing market cooling and most sales that were kicked off in summer 2020 are now complete
6. Longer term financial disaster is a possibility over next few years
Our figures for April are in, and it was terrible. Only did about 25% of normal turn over. The cool weather did not help but I think people are just hunkering down due to an expected difficult winter.
In addition making things more difficult we always give a pay rise in April so operating costs have gone up.
Red diesel ban is biting too.
We always have virtually guaranteed work in April - June and seeing how bad April was I think we are going to have a very, very tough winter.
In addition making things more difficult we always give a pay rise in April so operating costs have gone up.
Red diesel ban is biting too.
We always have virtually guaranteed work in April - June and seeing how bad April was I think we are going to have a very, very tough winter.
Seeing things cool off even further this week.
Thurs / Fri this week we would normally be taking orders Mon-Wed and I have took literally a handful of orders so far this week.
2 day BH coming up in 3 weeks so I expect that will make things even more quiet.
Not looking good for May. So far we are trading at least 50% down on average for May which is just mental.
Thurs / Fri this week we would normally be taking orders Mon-Wed and I have took literally a handful of orders so far this week.
2 day BH coming up in 3 weeks so I expect that will make things even more quiet.
Not looking good for May. So far we are trading at least 50% down on average for May which is just mental.
Gassing Station | Business | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff