When summer ends, the real work for ice cream parlours begins

There are few businesses where the weather forecast can have quite as immediate an effect on the till as an ice cream parlour

Give us a hot Saturday in July and people don’t need much persuading. They’re already thinking about ice cream. Families are out, high streets are busier and customers who might normally walk straight past suddenly want a cone. Tourists are also about in huge numbers.

The weather does the marketing for you! However, September and October are different.

Once the temperature drops, that automatic demand drops with it. And that’s when operators get a much clearer idea of how many summer visitors have actually become customers of the business.

A queue on a hot day is obviously good news, but it doesn’t necessarily tell you very much about loyalty. The more interesting question is whether somebody who first came in because it was 27 degrees decides to come back when it’s 12 degrees and raining.

For parlour owners, autumn is a good time to find out.

I see some businesses doing this very well by changing how customers think about a visit as the seasons change. During the colder months, the parlour needs to become somewhere people actively choose to go... a third space even.

They are not just places to buy food, but informal meeting points where people can spend time together without the cost or formality of a restaurant.

Ice cream parlours have the potential to occupy a similar space: somewhere familiar, affordable and social that people choose to return to because it feels part of the local area.

That can mean looking at the menu. Hot desserts paired with ice cream make sense when the weather turns. So do waffles, crepes, cakes, coffee and seasonal flavours. A takeaway tub for the weekend is a different purchase from a cone eaten on a sunny afternoon, but it’s still a sale for the same business.

Operators know their customers best, so there isn’t one winter menu that will work everywhere. A seaside parlour will have different trading patterns from a town-centre shop. A business popular with families after school will have different opportunities from one that relies heavily on tourists.

The important thing is to look at what people are actually coming in for and respond to that.

Parlours don’t need to redesign the entire business every October. Sometimes a couple of seasonal specials are enough to give regular customers something new to try. Autumn and Christmas are particularly good opportunities for flavour development because customers already associate those months with certain ingredients and treats.

Furthermore, a lot of loyalty in independent food businesses is built through very ordinary things: recognising somebody when they come back, remembering what they usually order, having staff who are pleased to see them.

Those things are easy to underestimate because they don’t show up neatly on a spreadsheet, but they still matter.

One of the strengths independent parlours have is that they can become very personal businesses. The owner may know several generations of the same family. Customers bring their children in after school. People have a favourite flavour or a particular sundae they’ve been ordering for years.

I’d also encourage operators to look at what happens to their marketing once summer ends.

It’s very easy to be active on social media when there’s a queue outside and you’re launching new flavours every week. Then October arrives, trade becomes quieter and posting slows down at exactly the point when you need to remind people that you’re still there.

There is plenty to talk about during winter. Businesses can show what’s being made or introduce the people behind the counter. Ask customers what flavour they’d like to see next. Put a seasonal special on the menu and see what happens. If something sells out, say so.

People often follow local businesses because they like the people running them.

Autumn is also a useful time to look back at the summer properly.

Fairly simple information can help with decisions for next year: Which products sold particularly well? Were there customers who returned several times? Did one promotion bring people through the door while another barely made a difference? Did your social following increase? What happened when the weather wasn’t quite as good?

Furthermore, we can ask regulars what they’d like you to offer through winter. If you’ve introduced something new, ask them what they think of it. Parlour owners have access to customer feedback every day, often from people who know the business extremely well.

In conclusion, I wouldn’t judge the health of a parlour on its busiest August weekend.

I’d be interested in what happens afterwards.

When somebody comes back in November because they like the shop, know the staff, want to try the new flavour they’ve seen online or have made the parlour part of their routine, that’s a customer relationship rather than a weather-driven sale.

For independent ice cream businesses, building more of those relationships is what can make the colder months much less daunting.

Find out more about

The Ice Cream Alliance

here: https://ice-cream.org