At the threshold of summer, the owners of food-service establishments take various steps intended to adapt their businesses to the season, including customers’ holiday preferences. Confectioneries and cafés are particularly exposed to seasonal fluctuations. Their customers are usually local residents who leave during the summer or radically change their consumer preferences.
City residents’ holiday trips are inevitable, and tourists take their place. If a confectionery is located in a place that is attractive to tourists, the seasonal decline in turnover may not be noticeable. If, however, the confectionery is not situated along a route of holiday attractions, the owner must increase their efforts to attract the customers remaining in the city with an appealing offer.
W-MOSZCZYNSKI-2013-5-41It is worth understanding why customers change their preferences depending on the season. In winter, they visit confectioneries and cafés because they like warm, cosy places isolated from the conditions outside, filled with the aromas of vanilla and chocolate and offering sweet cream cakes and poppy-seed cakes. During colder periods, customers prefer high-calorie cakes and pastries; they come to talk with friends over coffee or buy celebration cakes and other baked goods for family occasions.
It turns out that what is desirable in winter becomes less attractive in summer. Customers are then no longer looking for shelter in a warm, cosy place, but want to enjoy the fresh air and the charms of nature. Instead of high-calorie cakes, chocolates and hot coffee, they prefer light cakes, ice cream and cold drinks. During the holiday months there are not very many public holidays, name days or other occasions that cause confectionery turnover to increase.
To meet customers’ needs, it is therefore necessary to change the product range and reshape the confectionery’s image. Because the days are long in summer, the offer should be composed in such a way that it can be changed during the course of the day. Light breakfasts can be offered in the morning, and snacks and salads at noon. It is essential to provide cakes and pastries with fruit (blueberry buns and strawberry cakes), whipped cream, as well as ice cream and the very popular frozen yogurts. On hot afternoons there should be no shortage of cold smoothies, iced coffee and freshly squeezed fruit juices.
The ideal situation is one in which the confectionery/café has an outdoor garden. In addition to appropriately selected tables and chairs, it should contain plants and lighting that complete the atmosphere. In summer, so-called “events”—small occasions that attract customers—take on particular importance. This may be, for example, a musician playing the guitar; a presentation of a new baked product combined with a tasting; a meeting with a well-known person; or a neighborhood draughts tournament. Such events attract even customers who would never otherwise visit the confectionery.
It is worth devoting some attention to the summer atmosphere in the confectionery/café. One thing that strongly deters confectionery customers is noisy refrigeration and air-conditioning units. It is understandable that, in summer, when the ambient temperature exceeds 30°C, refrigerated display cases operate at maximum capacity. This does not, however, convince customers, who will choose friendlier places. On hot days, they will also avoid establishments containing hot ovens for warming bread and cakes, while the smell of freshly baked goods that is typical of confectioneries and bakeries is unlikely to attract anyone. It is worth knowing that tightly closed establishments in which the temperature is low and the constant hum of air-conditioning equipment prevails are not the best idea. Customers may enter such places to cool down, or may avoid them out of concern for their health. In the case of such confectioneries, it is certainly difficult to speak of summer tranquillity and a siesta atmosphere.
In summer, it is worth remembering to create an offer for children and young people, who have more time during the holidays and a greater need to meet and play together.
What, then, should a confectionery be like in summer? It would be good for its atmosphere to resemble that of Italian cafés filled with fresh air, the aroma of coffee, music and the relaxed atmosphere of summer.
Wojciech Moszczyński — graduate of the Department of Econometrics and Statistics of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń; specialist in econometrics, finance, data science, and management accounting. He specializes in the optimization of production and logistics processes. He conducts research in the area of the development and application of artificial intelligence. For years he has been engaged in the popularization of machine learning and data science in business environments.
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