Absence of Monsoon Forecast Throws Off Retailers, Marketers

By Jane Han Staff Reporter For the past near 50 years, the weather agency gave a good lead to retailers on when to ramp up their seasonal monsoon marketing to promote all sorts of rain-related goods. But now that the guidance is no longer available, they're on their own. The Korea Metrological Administration said Wednesday that it will discontinue offering rainy season forecasts starting this year as predicting downpours amid the global climate change is becoming more difficult. This means retailers and marketers, many of whom capitalize on the annual rainy months, can't concentrate their ad blitz on specific weeks as they used to. Then what? Extend promotions all summer long, they say. ``We're obviously not going to be sitting around guessing when the monsoon will hit,'' said Lee Ho-cheol, a merchandiser at Lotte Mart, who stressed that the rainy season is too big of an opportunity to miss. He explained that Lotte Mart is increasing its rain-related goods inventory by 15 percent in case the downpour goes super heavy. Based on the weather agency's statistics, the average precipitation during the monsoon season hasn't changed significantly in recent years, but the occurrence of sudden torrential rain has risen throughout the entire summer months. Lotte Mart and Shinsegae E-Mart are rushing products including dehumidifying and deodorizing agents to their store shelves at least one week earlier than previous years to acquaint shoppers with new products before rain hits. They're planning to offer special discounts and free giveaways for the early birds to get ahead. The end of June to mid-July used to be the best-selling season for these items, but retailers are expecting that sales will be more evenly spread out starting this year. E-Mart data shows that sales of umbrellas and household deodorizers have jumped 39.4 percent and 13.3 percent, respectively, in May compared to last year. Online shopping mall Auction also said that its sales of dehumidification goods hiked 150 percent year-on-year in May. ``In some ways, it's good that many of these products are selling over a longer period of time,'' said Hong Sung-jin, a merchandiser at E-Mart, ``but the fact that there is not one concentrated period weakens our marketing campaign.'' He explained that the absence of the monsoon forecast is going to put retailers on their toes until autumn. ``Since this is the first year we'll be without the forecast, we'll see how things pan out,'' said Hong. jhan@koreatimes.co.kr