In climates with four distinct seasons, most people appreciate when winter shows up a little late. Who doesn’t? Plow services getting paid by the job, regional ski resorts, and clothing retailers that sell winter coats. Retailers are stuck with a lot of cold-weather clothing right now that nobody is interested in because the weather isn’t cold.

In the long run, that’s good news for sweater-wearing humans. Retailers who based their shipments on last year’s weather patterns will be stuck with lots of coats, sweaters, and other cold-weather wear in stock, and they need to get rid of it before their spring merchandise arrives.

“Those [cold weather] businesses have been tough and obviously often you go to the store to buy the coat when it gets cold, so it’s impacting other categories as well because it’s less traffic,” the chief financial officer of Macy’s explained to Reuters. When you head to the department store to buy this year’s coat, you might also buy a matching hat, scarf, and mittens, and pick up a sweater that catches your eye.

Competitors of Macy’s cite similar problems: they blame falling sales on the loss of that important traffic from customers coming in to buy winter coats. Kohl’s and JCPenney both report that sales are down and blame the problem on the weather. While this might mean falling profits and stock prices for the retailers, it will most likely translate to fabulous sales for consumers once the weather gets cold.

Weather Woes Spell Red for Retailers [AdAge]

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