To organize profitable business V summer time year, you need to decide on the needs of the target audience: entertainment, relaxation, escape from the heat, sports competitions - the most popular niches in the summer, ideas for business in the summer should correspond to them.
For any business, it is important to understand what the target audience wants. And understanding the needs of people in the summer will help you decide which summer business will generate income. What do they want? In the summer, you want to: cool down, cheer up, have fun, relax.
We will start from these four summer needs. For each of them, we will consider two ideas that are not similar to each other and the possibilities of their unusual implementation. So, our review of 8 summer business ideas.
Hot? Then we are coming to you
Trade in ice cream and soft drinks
This good idea as old as time, which is why it is often forgotten. But in some cases, this type of summer income is within the reach of even a schoolchild. Alternatively, buy a cooler bag and fill it with goods: ice cream, bottles and jars of juice and lemonade. Sell in places large cluster people: beaches, train stations, large playgrounds.
If you approach this matter more thoroughly - rent or buy one or more mobile refrigerators, rent a place, hire salespeople, then the profit will be higher. Purchase goods at wholesale prices from specialized bases or directly from an ice cream production plant.
The disadvantage of such a business is a lot of competition, but here you can find a way out, or rather a way out, for example, organize the sale of ice cream from mobile bicycle refrigerators. If the influx of buyers has decreased, you can always move to another location.
You can organize such a business in a park, on the beach, on busy streets near public transport stops, post offices and other crowded places.
Sale of fans
Another business idea to help people cool down is selling fans. You can order goods on Chinese websites; they have very interesting and unusual models that are not widely available in regular stores.
Paid ones: advertising on local television, radio, creating a mini online store or selling website. But in this case, you need to start preparing the ground for this business in advance in order to have time to order goods, a website, and place advertising.
Cheer up? Take a ride with the breeze
Rental business
The first business idea for quick seasonal income in the summer from this subgroup is organizing a rental point. Depending on the starting capital, this can be rental of bicycles, children's cars, gyro-scooters, scooters, and trampolines.
If there is a beach in the city, then the rental items will be beach equipment (umbrellas, sun loungers, lifebuoys, vests, masks, fins), boats, catamarans, water skis, bicycles, etc.
If there are summer cafes near the beach, then, as an option, you can agree with its owner to place a vending machine selling cosmetic, medical and hygiene supplies, which are often needed on the beach. These include: before/for/after tanning products, bandages, plasters, sanitary pads and other necessary items. The vending business is also convenient because the product can be repurposed for any season.
Zorbing as a business
You can have a great ride not only while sitting on a bicycle or catamaran, but also inside an inflatable ball - a zorb. The essence of the idea is to organize an extreme attraction - zorbing. A person pays for the opportunity to ride in a huge inflatable ball.
Zorbing can be mountain (a person in a ball rolls down a mountain), water (swims in a ball on water in a pool or other body of water). More information about this sport entertainment can be found on the website dedicated to zorbing zorb.ru.
Entertainment business in summer
Mobile shooting range
The essence of the idea is the organization of an open-air shooting range. Visitors are invited to shoot weapons at targets with special plastic bullets. For one attempt, a certain number of shots are given, after which a prize is awarded, depending on the number of hits. This is the simplest option.
There are more unusual options, such as a crossbow and bow shooting range. This and other types of turnkey shooting ranges are offered by the Robinhood company, which produces them. The type of shooting range can be chosen depending on the initial capital that you are willing to invest in the business. There are gradations: up to 100 thousand rubles, from 100 thousand to 400 thousand rubles and over 400 thousand rubles.
Next to the shooting range for adults, you can organize a children's mini shooting range with throwing darts at balloons. The inflated balls are placed on a wooden screen with recesses. Such boards with balls can be found in parks and squares and they may well exist as an independent business in warm time year. This type of business does not require large investments. And the unusual design and variety of prizes will help you differentiate yourself from your competitors.
Rope park
The essence of the idea is the organization of entertainment coupled with sports passion. This could be an open-air rope park. If you have no experience in running such a business, it is better to turn to specialists or open it as a franchise.
Where can I get the equipment? One of the options is the Kings of Sparta company, which designs and builds sports and entertainment complexes, including rope parks on trees and artificial supports.
When ordering the design and construction of a park, the company additionally provides employee training, installation, marketing, 15 free sets of insurance, 1 free maintenance. Also on the company’s website you can find a lot of useful materials about the technical aspects of opening a rope park.
Relax
Open air cinema
The essence of the idea is to organize a movie viewing in an open-air cinema. In Moscow, such cinemas are not difficult to find in the summer, which cannot be said about provincial cities, so the niche is practically free, competition is either small or non-existent.
For example, in the West and in Europe such a concept as drive-in cinemas is very popular. Car enthusiasts who want to plunge into nighttime romance and watch a movie from the comfort of their own car or sitting on its roof are the target audience that should be targeted when implementing this summer business idea.
Watch a video about how to open a summer cinema
Summer cafe
The opportunity to relax, cool off and have fun can be combined with a summer cafe. There are a great many concepts for organizing a business. Starting from stylized oriental or European style verandas, to an open-air kebab shop with plastic tables and chairs for visitors.
To attract visitors and set yourself apart from competitors, it would be a good idea to equip your outdoor cafe with additional features. Depending on the format, these could be:
- children's corner;
- a balloon or ice cream as a gift for all children;
- unusual interior, seating, cafe on the water, signature dish or drink that is not available in other cafes in the city;
- live music in evening time;
- promotions (bring a friend, third serving of ice cream as a gift) and others;
- organization of themed evenings (humorous, literary, entertainment, watching films or sports matches).
As a bonus, a few more ideas: picking and selling mushrooms and berries; organization of corporate events, outdoor photo sessions; decoration balloons; organizing transfers to airports and train stations in Moscow from other cities; sale of fruits and berries (melons, watermelons, cherries, strawberries).
These are far from the only ideas for business in the warm season. If it seems that all the niches in one direction or another are already occupied, you need to get creative. First, find out the demand and needs of people, and based on this, make a decision on organizing a business, especially since some of the ideas require minimal or no investment.
During vacation, people are ready to spend money and you must create conditions under which vacationers will be happy to use your services. If you live in a resort area, consider starting a seasonal business. There are many options - from selling ice cream to opening a hotel.
You should prepare in advance for opening a seasonal business - there is no time to waste, summer will fly by quickly, and with it the opportunity to earn money. There are amusement parks in every city, which means you need to think about what services will be in demand.
With the end of the season, it is not necessary to close the business for six months and live off your earnings based on upcoming profits. Some Russian companies with seasonal business earn all year round. How they do it and whether you can apply their experience.
Grapes are a heat-loving crop; to grow a good harvest, you need a temperature of +25-30 °C. In Russia, you can get ripe grapes in greenhouses, while even southern varieties retain their characteristic rich taste and aroma. The quality of the berries is high, since the plant does not suffer from pests and chemicals.
Early radishes are in high demand, appearing on shelves in the spring and, together with green onions and young lettuce, replenish vitamin deficiencies. It takes 30 days for radishes to ripen; in greenhouses, the root crop can be grown all year round.
Many people are happy to cheat indoor plants, without thinking that this hobby can bring a small profit. You can sell flower sprouts or mature plants, and if you have the opportunity to set up a small greenhouse, you can set up a real business.
You need to prepare in advance for opening a seasonal business. Many people like snowmobiling, but purchasing your own vehicle is problematic. You will provide a service to winter lovers active recreation, if you give me the opportunity to ride with the breeze.
Seasonal business is a business that brings profit in a limited period of time; with proper planning, it can be highly profitable. Seasonal types of business are divided into those related to resale and those requiring certain skills for production. For example, landscaping, which is popular in the spring, requires qualifications. Success in seasonal business is achieved by people who are able to adapt to changing conditions and quickly change strategy, accurately plan actions over several months of active work.
In summer, promising types of business include trade in ice cream, fruit, soft drinks, amusement rides, rental of recreational equipment, etc. Also in summer, there is an increased demand for the installation of air conditioners, renovations in apartments, and glazing of balconies. In autumn comes the season for selling fruits and vegetables. In winter, New Year's gifts are sold well, and there is a demand for organizing and holding holidays. Seasonal business in the spring is mainly associated with gardening work.
Every individual entrepreneur knows that sales of his goods are subject to seasonality. Even bread, an essential daily product, has its seasonality; in the summer, as a rule, it is bought less and in the winter more. But in the summer, bread kvass sells well, so you can sell several products, and seasonality will not significantly affect the overall profit. There is also a clear rule that before holidays, which in Russia the government tries to make less frequent but longer, sales increase, but after the holidays they fall.
And this is not due to the low demand for certain groups of goods, but to the general solvency of the population. After the holidays, the wallets of our fellow citizens are empty, and filling them up in the form of savings for making serious purchases is much slower than spending money before the holidays. The same phenomenon is observed after the summer holidays. All year round, buyers save money for all kinds of tours and trips, and after returning from travel, many “tighten their belts” tighter. Naturally, the market for expensive goods immediately suffers, since many families at this time spend money only on food and on paying for vital services.
All these phenomena are logical and understandable; no one would think of arguing with these statements. Only some regional features can influence these processes. I can give one example amazing fact. I have been working in the field of advertising for many years, and for the same number of years I have been reading in very respectable sources that summer is the time of radio advertising and a decline in TV advertising. And rightly so, because the guideline is the needs of the viewer-listener. In the summer, the advertising consumer most often listens to the radio outdoors, in the countryside, on picnics, and at camp sites. And the TV fades into the background. The situation changes dramatically in winter, when people sit in warm houses, in comfortable sofas.
But in small provincial towns, the worldview of entrepreneurs is so conservative that it is impossible to convince them that they need to focus on consumer interests, and not on their own. They reason differently: “If I go to trip around the world on an ocean liner, then everyone goes there and on the same transport, then why advertise at all. And it turns out that it is in this area that the low season in the summer begins for the entire advertising business.
Of course, I exaggerated, but I conveyed the meaning of what was happening correctly. This phenomenon is likely to be misunderstood by progressives. major cities, where the understanding of businessmen is more dynamic, where knowledge of the laws of the market is an indispensable element of entrepreneurship.
What can happen during the off-season?
If it is “out of season” for your type of product, then you may encounter the following manifestations. A drop in sales nullifies all your efforts to promote the product; even the highest quality product becomes unclaimed. The number of customers who contact your company with the desire to buy something is falling catastrophically, and even fewer of those who actually buy something. The entrepreneur is cutting working capital, nothing to buy new product, update and expand the range. Competitors, in order to attract buyers, arrange price reductions and sales; you strive to do the same, lowering the price to the cost level, but you do not observe any positive effect in sales. At this time, as a rule, large manufacturers become more active and can offer a lower price, which the consumer chooses, leaving behind the goods of small entrepreneurs.
What is the result of this phenomenon? For some time, the company has been operating at a loss, there is not enough money to purchase goods, utilities, and employee salaries, as a result of which the most professional personnel end up with competitors. Debts to creditors, banks, and product suppliers are growing. A very unpleasant picture, which can be somewhat improved by the savings that the entrepreneur will make during the year, knowing that the “off season” will come. But preparation for this period should take place in several directions, not only in the area of forming reserves of money.
Ways to increase sales during the off-season
In order not only not to drop, but also to increase sales during the period of seasonal stagnation, there are several ways. Each company can come up with its own methods. If you have never asked yourself this question, then start by implementing our recommendations, and then you will come up with your own ideas.
Method one - working with the client base
If you constantly work with both your base and clients, then it will be easier to survive stagnation in sales. Constantly remind clients about yourself. Maintain your customer and partner database correctly. Be sure to include in the customer cards such items as the birthday of the director of the company, the company itself, the date professional holiday etc. These are significant positive reasons to congratulate and remind you of yourself. And if you have discounts, promotions, distribution of bonuses, change of cooperation system, then again use data from your database: send messages by e-mail, fax, printed letter in an envelope, by phone.
The search for new clients is very problematic, although it cannot be stopped. But if a company or individual has already become your client once, then convincing him of the need to buy again is much easier. And on the eve of the holiday, it will be very logical and effective to contact him, and remind him of himself, and invite him to his store. Only this appeal must be correctly composed, the client must be motivated as much as possible. How to do this - read our article on writing a commercial proposal.
Method two – launching a viral marketing wave
You can also find a huge number of articles on viral marketing. Without going into theory, you can give some advice of this kind. For the holidays, prepare a discount for customers if the customer refers a friend to you, even if he does not make a purchase. If a condition is set on the purchase being made, then many immediately refuse to participate in the promotion. Make it simple: bring a friend - 5% discount, bring a friend who bought the product - 25% discount. And it won’t be expensive for you, and there’s no chance of attracting them to your store. more clients there will be a lot more.
Some stores and companies offer a discount for contacting three or more friends who are subsequently referred to purchase. Someone does it even more effectively: it is not the client himself who gets the discount, but his friend who comes to the same company to make a purchase. Only about this promotion should be told to all residents of the locality, so that they look among their friends for those who have already bought something and received a coupon for a friend.
Method three - valuable and not so valuable gifts
The more valuable the gift, the greater the chance of attracting more buyers. If you purchase future gifts during the off-season of the companies that sell them, they will cost you less. Let them wait in your warehouse for their time. And before the holidays or your seasonal period, start a long-term promotion, during which for the purchase of a certain amount of goods you will receive the gift your customers need.
I remember an incident when I came to a large supermarket after the New Year (very low season) and saw that the shelf with washing powders had gathered quite a lot of customers. It turns out that each pack of powder came with a gift - a cleaner for sinks and stoves, and dishwashing liquid. This triple set caused complete delight among the ladies, and even those who did not have an urgent need for washing powder bought it. The interests of customers were very carefully taken into account - the set contained only those goods that are always very necessary for every housewife!
This is exactly how gifts should be selected. If you sell TVs, give them a special product to care for the screen in the worst case scenario, and if possible, give them a more serious gift, for example, a moving shelf for attaching to the wall. If you sell milk, give them a jug to store it in the refrigerator. If you sell clothes, you can give a certificate for the purchase of a wardrobe from a company related to you. And that company, in turn, will give certificates for the purchase of your clothes. Such cooperation is very beneficial for mid-level entrepreneurs.
Method four - use discount cards
The benefits of issuing and distributing discount cards have long been proven. When presenting such a card, be sure to ask the client to fill out a form where he will indicate his contact information - phone number, email, as well as birthday. Not everyone has a personal website or fax, but it’s better not to ask for your address and passport details, as this will raise questions and unpleasant impressions about the company. A discount card should provide a discount, and the larger it is, the more valuable the card will be for the client, the more willingly he will provide information about himself and the contacts of his friends. A cumulative discount card will encourage you to make purchases only in your company in order to achieve maximum discounts. And subsequently the client will come only to you, since such a discount on this type of product will only be available in your company.
Once upon a time in small town I observed an example of issuing discount cards that did not increase profits, but, on the contrary, reduced them and discredited the company. A chain of local grocery stores issued discount cards, which they distributed with much noise and PR. It turned out that the discount is 3%, and not on all goods, but only on 3 types - milk, bread and wheat cereal. And not every day, but only on Wednesdays and Fridays. And only if the total purchase price reaches 300 rubles. Pensioners and old people were completely bewildered, and even forgetting decency, threw these cards in the sellers' faces.
When making discount cards, give discounts without restrictions on time and types of goods. For certain types, it is best to hold promotions, and the main discount should be permanent. Promotions with discounts and gifts, which are added to the main discount, work very well.
Method five - one-time discount using a coupon
This method is very popular with various large chain stores. During the period of increased sales before the holidays, customers are given coupons for a significant discount, which can be received after the holidays, that is, during the “low season.” Not all coupons are then collected back in the store, but there is a certain benefit from them, otherwise this type of customer attraction would not have been used for many years in a row. Marketers have determined that the amount for which coupons are issued should be a minimum of 10% and a maximum of 25%. The only limitation that buyers need to be warned about is the time limit on the ability to use coupons. That is, they should only work during periods of declining sales.
At this time, many stores use the coupon method to attract customers. Therefore, in order for your company to be noticed and visited by buyers, you need to come up with a creative advertising move. Place more advertising, its text should be as attractive as possible for potential buyers. Briefly tell us in this text about the main advantages of purchasing from you right now.
Method six - come up with new ways to work with clients
In anticipation of a lull in sales, prepare unusual surprises and new forms of cooperation for customers. But all this will be reduced to zero if your assortment is not updated, if the staff is rude to customers and serves slowly. If the quality of customer service is very high, then the client himself will come to you, without any persuasion.
To maintain customer interest, you can give a small but pleasant free service after the holidays, or a gift for being the hundredth or tenth customer, etc. Pay attention to your competitors: if they provide additional services, then enter the same ones for yourself, but provide one or two of them for free. But in return, ask your customers to give you the contacts of their friends and acquaintances in order to replenish your customer base.
Among the pleasant bonuses we can offer beautiful packaging, package or box, they must have the company logo on them. Every visit to you, the client should receive something pleasant - from a bonus on purchase to a simple piece of candy. Congratulate your clients on their birthday and invite them to your company’s birthday.
Do you have a seasonal decline in sales, for example, in January? Set a day for Tatyana - your company’s birthday, conduct active preparations, accompanied advertising company. Invite clients, partners, prepare gifts or animators for them, use your imagination! An influx of buyers and increased sales are guaranteed!
If you have carefully read our recommendations, then you have done correct conclusion: A seasonal decline in sales is not scary only for those companies that constantly work with their client base, with their customers. These areas are necessarily included in marketing plan, and if in your company it is not only written, but also implemented, then the “off season” will not cause you any problems.
E. Shchugoreva
Video on how to cope with seasonality in business:
Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn