Listen to this articleWeather Trends International’s core competency is year-ahead weather and sales forecasting for large multi-national retailers, manufacturers of seasonal products, Wall Street and small business everywhere in the world. Their 14-time award winning technology is very different than traditional meteorology that is Physics based whereas they use a statistical 24-climate cycle model that is much more accurate. WTI projects temperatures, rain and snow by week for every 1 mile on Earth or 32 million locations but more importantly combine that with a sales forecasting technology to assist companies with how much product to buy or make, where to allocate inventory in the optimal weather conditions, when to promote and advertise in ideal weather a year ahead.
Below is our interview with Bill Kirk, CEO of Weather Trends International:
Q: You’ve recently been named a gold winner in Most Innovative Company of the Year in Best in Biz Awards; could you tell us something more?
A: The comment from the Best in Biz folks that the judges found our technology the most fascinating from all the applicants was encouraging that we are indeed on the right path with something truly special here at Weather Trends. We have received all sorts of prestigious awards including 5th Most Promising Company in America on Forbes list but the real validation is seeing firsthand how the technology helps business become PROACTIVE not REACTIVE to the weather and it’s influence on sales.
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Q: Who is your ideal client and why?
A: Large retailers or global seasonal manufacturers like Target, AutoZone, Mercedes, Home Depot, Walgreens, Old Navy, Zappos, Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch, Flower Foods, Unilever, 3M, JP Morgan, Microsoft, AgReliant and over a thousand others. Retailers have tremendous exposure to the volatility of weather and overall sales performance as consumers buy products they need in part when the weather warrants the use of that product. You will buy less winter apparel if it’s very warm, more if it’s colder. You drink more cold beverages if it’s very hot, less if its colder in Summer. WTI currently has customers in 190 countries.
Q: Can you give us more insights into your services?
A: One thing clients love is our “Power of 1 degree” change in temperature influence on sales. As an example, every 1F warmer and beer and beverage sales go up 1-3%, 10 degrees warmer year-over-year sales up 10% to 30%. Every 1F warmer and air conditioner sales up 10%, grilling categories 3%, Lettuce 2%, bedding plants 8%, suncare 7%, apparel 3%. In the Winter every 1F colder year-over-year and sales go up 2% for jeans, 3% for fleece, 5% for coats, 8% for fire logs, 10% for portable heaters and a whopping 24% for electric blankets. Appling these insights on consumer buying behavior to our year-ahead weekly forecasts allows clients to better plan around the most likely weather trends everywhere in the world. The services sound expensive in the $50K to $200K a year range but not when the ROI is typically in the 10s of millions and in some cases 100s of millions for our larger global customers.
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Q: What are your plans for 2018?
A: Our e-commerce small business platform is very popular with small businesses and farmers all over the world that have some of the same business risks as large retailers or manufacturers only they just need to worry about their one location. Our low cost plans from $299 – $499 a year allow them to make better long range strategic plans just like our bigger clients so this is a rapidly growing sector for us with so many industries impacted by the weather.
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