Company blames heatwave for drop in profits, claiming fewer people coming into branches to play on gambling machines
As the high street veteran Sir Stuart Rose once said "weather is for wimps"– yet ask any retailer what the default excuse for a poor performance is and most will still tell you it is the weather.
Rain keeps customers at home indoors watching TV; the sun keeps them outdoors in the park or garden and away from the stores. No conditions seem to be ideal.
While some areas of the high street can get away with a good solid weather excuse – garden and DIY centres, for instance – others are more likely to raise eyebrows.
Ladbrokes falls squarely into the latter category.
The company said fewer people have been coming into its branches to play on the money-guzzling gambling machines because the nice weather has been keeping them outside.
If only Ladbrokes had latched on to online gambling in the same way as its rivals, perhaps it would have had a fighting chance of keeping the punters hooked – using their smartphones and tablets while sipping a pint in their local pub garden.
If anything, the weather has shown up the woeful digital offering from the business rather than acted as a force beyond management's control.
And there is a wider problem with the weather excuse: it leaves questions open over whether management have any control over their business.
Of course the weather can have an impact, but surely the best managers are the ones who know how to deal with it. The weather has been around far longer than the high street; you would think retailers would have got over their surprise long ago as the fact that, in Britain at least, it can change. Reported by guardian.co.uk 5 hours ago.
As the high street veteran Sir Stuart Rose once said "weather is for wimps"– yet ask any retailer what the default excuse for a poor performance is and most will still tell you it is the weather.
Rain keeps customers at home indoors watching TV; the sun keeps them outdoors in the park or garden and away from the stores. No conditions seem to be ideal.
While some areas of the high street can get away with a good solid weather excuse – garden and DIY centres, for instance – others are more likely to raise eyebrows.
Ladbrokes falls squarely into the latter category.
The company said fewer people have been coming into its branches to play on the money-guzzling gambling machines because the nice weather has been keeping them outside.
If only Ladbrokes had latched on to online gambling in the same way as its rivals, perhaps it would have had a fighting chance of keeping the punters hooked – using their smartphones and tablets while sipping a pint in their local pub garden.
If anything, the weather has shown up the woeful digital offering from the business rather than acted as a force beyond management's control.
And there is a wider problem with the weather excuse: it leaves questions open over whether management have any control over their business.
Of course the weather can have an impact, but surely the best managers are the ones who know how to deal with it. The weather has been around far longer than the high street; you would think retailers would have got over their surprise long ago as the fact that, in Britain at least, it can change. Reported by guardian.co.uk 5 hours ago.