We talk about the weather all of the time, but rarely do we stop to consider how it impacts on the marketer and specifically how it affects the sales performance of a website. The intricacies are far more complex than just whether it's summer or winter. There are in fact two very different categories of weather changes we should consider.

The first is seasonal change - hot in the summer, cold in the winter, with products bought in anticipation of each season. The second is weather changes that are an abnormal deviation from the broad seasonal expectation, such as a sudden heat wave or unexpected early/late snow. For the retail sector the weather is a major variable and both these types of weather change deserve some theoretical attention and some practical forward planning.

So how does the weather affect Internet retail sales and what should the marketer do?

Read more: Whitepaper: The effects of the weather on Internet retail sales.