Spring, summer, fall, and winter, the market (market) takes on many different faces during the year. Some come suddenly like a Covid19, but basically, the market moves with some regularity throughout the year. In terms of people’s movements, people are more active during the New Year’s holidays, long vacations (such as Golden Week), and Obon holidays. It is easy to imagine that the end of the year, the new life period from March to April, and the bonus season are the times when people are more inclined to buy on the Internet.

There are times when people are active on the Internet, but there are also times when they are not so active, such as February and July-September, which is known as the summer slump. We are now in the midst of the summer slump, but why does something like the summer slump occur in the first place?
It is easy to understand if you think about people’s movements, but don’t people shop a lot at the beginning and end of the year? Or do you take a long vacation in the summer, or when the weather is nice, don’t you go out to the beach or mountains instead of shopping? That’s right, after you’ve made a huge purchase (spent money) or if there’s something that outweighs your desire to buy (you want to relax on vacation or enjoy the real world instead of the internet), your online purchasing habits die out.

This summer, sales/transactions on the internet other than daily goods and consumer goods are down, especially in the real estate/financial sector, due in large part to the corona vortex. Of course, ad placements are affected by the above sales/transactions, so ad spending has been reduced. Under normal market trends, both purchasing behavior and ad spending on the Internet would gradually recover from September, but this summer, due to the impact of the corona, it is difficult to see what the future holds. So what can you do to help with this unpredictability?

One thing you can do is to plan your own sales, to create your own timing for selling your products. As I wrote in my last blog (https://sophola.jp/en/blog/marketing_21_08_2020/), you can inspire users to buy by planning your own sales well. The other thing you can do is to keep up with the trends/sales of other companies. Due to the Corona Vortex, many companies have canceled or postponed their regular events. To put it simply, the Amazon Prime Sale in July every year was postponed, which is easy to imagine. However, it’s not that companies don’t hold events at all, but rather that they stop holding big events and hold small events on an irregular basis, so I think you can increase sales by planning for those events and participating in the events themselves, even if only a little. This year, events are often irregular, so it will be important in future marketing activities to actively seek out events on your own and to participate in events that you feel are worthy of being a part of.

Although the impact of the corona vortex is significant, the overall market is expected to move in basically the same way as it has in the past. Let’s catch the market wave well and move forward with our after-corona marketing efforts.

SOPHOLA Inc.
Kenta