Why Summer Slumps Aren't Inevitable

# Why Summer Slumps Aren't Inevitable

[00:00:00]

**Matt Edmundson:** So summer 2025, I think is officially over, isn't it? And most e-commerce businesses

perhaps are breathing. A sigh of relief that they have survived yet another holiday season.

But not everyone was accepting the inevitable summer slump. You know, some businesses were quietly capturing opportunities, uh, others had completely missed.

And I'm gonna show you what we learned from this summer's performance data and why next year could be completely different, uh, for your e-commerce business if you challenge one single assumption.

Now, our post summer analysis, which all sounds very grand, isn't it? Uh, our post summary analysis revealed strategies that could have prevented the typical 50% sales drop we normally would experience.

And you can keep in survival mode next summer, or [00:01:00] maybe you can start planning to thrive next summer and do things a little bit differently. So that is what we are gonna get into in this episode of this week's. eCommerce Podcast, a very warm welcome to you. My name is Matt Edmundson. If you are new to the show, thanks for joining us.

Uh, please like and subscribe and do all of that good stuff. And of course, if you're a regular, it is good to be with you. And at the end of today's episode, I will talk to you about this month's freebie. So the tools that I use, uh, that we've started giving out for free, I'm gonna explain to you what that is and how it's gonna help you, uh, in summer next year to do, to kill it, to absolutely, uh, kill it compared to this year.

So stick around for that, that will all be revealed at the end. You know, the true YouTube tease. Or podcast teaser as it is, stay around to the end because we've got this really lovely freebie. Um, yes, we have anyway, now at the [00:02:00] start of summer, uh, if you, if you are in England, uh, and you can cast your minds back, that for you, remember, well, you may remember, uh, the famous Amber weather warning we got, because you know what, we don't do that well, do we with.

Any kind of weather it seems in the uk and this summer was no different and we got the usual weather alerts and within, you know, within hours of getting those, uh, weather warnings, the social media feeds were filled with the usual British mix of panic and excitement about temperatures reaching what most of the world considers quite normal.

But not in England. Welcome to England. Welcome to our crazy weather. But you know what a amongst all of that was not the weather talk, although obviously we're British and we like to talk about the weather. It's what we do. Um, it was more the immediate business conversations that sort of followed that.

That were interesting [00:03:00] to me. So you know, phrases like a guess. We, we won't be getting much done this week or time to batten down the hatches chaps until this passes, or at least it's summer. It's quiet anyway, and maybe I'll get some peace and quiet and can catch up with some stuff. Right now that we're here in September, at least at the time of recording, looking back at the summer that's just passed, how many of those assumptions actually played out?

The way that we expected, like did you have expectations going into the summer of what would happen in your e-commerce business and were those expectations fulfilled, either good or bad? I'm kind of curious. Uh, let me know. Now, I know with the e-commerce companies that I own, that I'm involved with, uh, there are definite trading seasons, right?

There are times when I expect sales to go up, and there are times when I expect sales to go down and that.

Expectation is all based on my interpretation of last year's data. It's based on [00:04:00] my experience of running that business. It is what I would call my default assumption. And before we do anything, we have to examine, add default assumptions.

The teams that I'm a part of, you know, we all work together. We've got marketing team and all that sort of stuff. We've all got assumption as well. They've all got assumptions. Everybody has assumptions. Like obviously sales are gonna drop in August, maybe. I don't know. Nothing much happens after Father's Day until September.

It's just how businesses work in the summer, isn't it? You know, those kind of default assumptions that we've never really questioned or looked at. Well, now that I am able to look at the actual numbers from this summer, I can see. Actually, one of the teams was absolutely right. Sales dropped for that business from their peak, just as predicted.

But another team, well, [00:05:00] that team grew the business. By 19% if I'm gonna give you an exact percentage at 19% year on year, during what should have been potentially the slowest period of the year. And it intrigued me, right? It intrigued me a lot. So why were we as a company maybe, and why are you perhaps so comfortable?

Predictions that basically amount to our business will perform badly for the next two to three months. Right? It's a bizarre assumption when you think about it. And when you are, when you're in that state, you are essentially planning for the business to underperform for a quarter of the year, maybe not a quarter, for the summer of the year, six year, uh, six years, six weeks.

Uh, and we call this acceptable business practice, right? 'cause we've just, this is what we've always done. We've had that assumption. And you might be crying at Yes, Matt, but we all, this happens every summer. We always, you know, have [00:06:00] a summer sales slump. It's just, it's our industry. Everyone in the industry has it.

And yes, I get it. I understand it, but I just feel like I should challenge it maybe a little bit, you know, that default assumption. And I appreciate that. I'm actually talking to myself just as much as I'm talking to anyone else because I've definitely been guilty of this thinking myself, right? This summer, uh, marked my fourth annual August sabbatical.

Uh, I think I've talked about this on the show, but this is where I basically take the whole of August off. I just, I just shut down. And this year, let me tell you, it was very, very needed and I. I loved it. It was brilliant. Um, I came back refreshed and ready for the big September push. You know, we are now thinking we've got Black Friday going on.

We did the whole series on Black Friday in August on the podcast. Uh, we've got as old as it sounds. We have to start thinking about Christmas and the new Year, right? So you [00:07:00] come back, you are refreshed. And September to me, always feels like the start of a new year. I think it's sort of left over from school, isn't it?

The start of a new school year. Uh, it just sort of feels that way. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day. Uh, he said, it feels like we have three new years, a year. It's like we have the new year in September, uh, because that's just kind of what we grew it with as kids at school. Oh, September. It just feels like a new year.

Then you have the actual new Year in January. Uh, and then we have the tax New Year, which for most companies, including mine is is April. So we have these three periods inside the year. Uh, that are in fact New Year's. Uh, so it, it just sort of feels that way. So I take the sabbatical and I come back sort of refreshed, right?

But if I, if I think about why August? Why do I take the sabbatical in August? Why have I done that the last four years? And if I'm honest, it's because.

It's the most sensible time, and it's [00:08:00] the most sensible time because everything is just a bit slower. Sales are slower, the company's slower. Everyone in the company takes holidays, especially those that got kids at school.

So then it just all feels like it's gonna slow down. So August feels like a very good time to take sabbatical. And actually it was because it, it wa it did. You know, you, you sort of get into that rhythm, don't you? Uh, but also we had amazing weather, so, you know, back to the weather. Um, so I, I have this, I had, you know, I have this thinking myself, this default thinking, which says things just slow down.

But this year, well actually I started to write. My thoughts for this podcast before the summer, um, because I, this year I wanted to approach summer differently. I didn't wanna just assume, right? I wanted to, I wanted to challenge that default assumption that I mentioned, you know? Uh, I wanted to challenge the idea that August performance isn't [00:09:00] just dependent on what we do in August.

In fact, when I dug into it a little bit. August is very much dependent on what we do in March and April, which is why I wanna talk to you about this now. So you can review the summer while it's still fresh in your head and plan ahead. So sort of march April time and start thinking about what you're gonna do next summer.

Right? Because we had some good growth this summer and I'm like, I want repeat that. Okay. Treat in August as an inevitable downtime. I think actually disguised, you know, as sort of. Business wisdom, I think has to stop. Um, and like I say, when I started digging into the research earlier this year, while most businesses were accepting the summer slumps, as you know, this natural law, like I said, been there, I quickly found out that there actually, there are parts of the world that do this quite differently and they do something completely differently.

For example, [00:10:00] in the Baltic states, which. You know, if you are from the Baltic Stakes and you're listening to the podcast. God bless you because you guys have taught me something this year. You know, we, we think, oh, we're in the West, we're British, uh, or American. Therefore, we know everything there is to know about e-commerce.

Uh, and there's one thing that I've learned on this podcast is actually we really don't, and it's good to learn from other nations, other countries and see what they're doing. Um, and the Baltic states are no exception. So you've got, uh, Estonia, you've got Latvia, you've got Lithuania. And actually in these countries, right, in these states, e-commerce spending increases by 15% during their summer months.

Yes. It increases. So they assume that they're gonna sell more in summer, where we assume that we are gonna sell less unless we're selling, I, I don't know, swimming trunks, um, or budgie smugglers as we used to call them when I was a kid, for reasons I won't go into. Um, so unless you're selling like specific summer products.

We just assumed it would go [00:11:00] down. But in the Baltic Stakes, average cart values also go up. They peak at around 90 euros, 86 euros, 67 cents if you want an exact figure. Um, and they, they sort of peak in June and they stay elevated throughout July and August. And that got me thinking, hmm. I wonder why now these aren't warmer countries with year round outdoor cultures, right?

It's not like, it's not like Portugal, is it? They're dealing with extreme seasonal variation, and in fact, their, their seasonal variation is gonna be way more dramatic than what we experience here in the uk, which is just consistently gray and dreary with the odd exception right now. I love this because it seems that they're refusing to accept summer as a write-off period, which is interesting.

So what does the global e-commerce market do right in, in 2024, there was 6.8 trillion pounds [00:12:00] spent. With eCommerce business, 6.8 trillion. That's a lot of zeros, right? With summer months actually driving some of the strongest growth rates of the year, depending on what industry or business that you're in.

So I wanted to capitalize on this, right? Because here's the points from the data that really challenged me and helped me think, well, why is this? What is going on and what can we do over summer?

70% of consumers made their summer purchases in March, April, and May. Only 19% waited until June.

Which is really interesting and I'm, I'm really curious actually, to see how the data from 2025 connects with this, because this year it seems like, uh, the airlines especially have suffered because we've all been bucking last minute holidays, especially in England because of the [00:13:00] economy and budget announcements and all that sort of stuff.

You know, it's a tricky place to be right now. It's a tricky place to do retail, and so it seems that. Summer purchasers are pulled back now, um, March, April, may time, which is why I'm like, what happens in August? Depends on what you do in March, April and May. So it's, it's really interesting, isn't it? So we weren't just experienced summer slums, we.

Previously we were sort of missing the planning window, if you like. That drives summer performance. And so you would, you would get to the summer and you'd do things like, we should probably do something to try and help people spend over summer. 'cause it slows down. What could we do? Some kind of offer or something.

But actually by that point, we'd already missed the point. Right? We'd already missed the, the planning window. Again, this is general, the nuances for your industry are gonna be. Varied, aren't they? You're gonna have to think that through and do some research. This is just a general idea, and this was my stream of thinking to get me out of this default assumption that summer was not gonna be as good.

Right. [00:14:00] That's, this is my whole process. Welcome to Matt's brain. Right. Well, welcome to my thought process, and I'm very sorry now at Orian. Uh, I've taught, um, something in workshops to other businesses in the coaching, something that has really, really helped me, and it's called challenging the default. In fact, I have a nickname for it.

It's called unDefault, which I appreciate is not an actual real word. It's one that I've made up, but it captures the principle perfectly on default. In fact, if you were to ask me what my values were, one of them would be this word on default, and I'm gonna explain why. Okay. And actually the freebie ties into this, just to give you a little bit of a heads up.

So looking back at summer, the summer, that's just gone right? Summer 2025.

I can see precisely where we defaulted to industry assumptions instead of questioning them.

Right. We didn't challenge the default. Most e-commerce businesses operated [00:15:00] on the same summer default. So we see marketing spread, spread, I dunno what that word is either.

Uh, but marketing spend decreased during quiet periods, right? We saw customer service, uh, operations sort of decrease because of skeleton crews, people going away on holiday, but we don't get people in to replace them. Um, new product launches, they were all delayed until September. Uh, why would you do a product launch in the summer?

Right? So default thinking things that we do because it slows down. But again, I'm not trying to tell you to do something that is contrary to your industry. I'm just, I'm helping you challenge your thinking by not just assuming that this has to be the way for you, right? Because what if these defaults, these.

Standard practices, the standard way of thinking are the very problem, well, what happens if they, they maybe, let me phrase this different. What happens if they [00:16:00] create the very problem that they're supposed to solve? Right? So this year we began implementing a few different changes. Honestly, nothing out of the.

As say now, nothing revolutionary is probably a better phrase to put it. We just challenge the default a little bit, just a bit of thoughtful planning based on questioning those assumptions. For example, and it's a very obvious statement to make, but it really intrigued me. Um, the research shows that mobile browsing actually goes up during summer.

So we already know that, um, a lot of people are using their mobiles right for browsing, and that's only getting higher and higher, but actually it increases during the summer. So what do you do? Well,

you focus on mobile optimization and conversion improvements during the summer shopping period.

So because someone's traveling somewhere, someone's going somewhere and they remember to go on the website, [00:17:00] I've gotta make it easier for them now.

Yes, we should con. Continually be optimizing our mobile browsing experience. But it seems to me that spending a bit of time on that before summer actually actually works quite well. It's a good time to do it because there you're gonna get your peak of mobile browsers. Okay, so. Here's what we did. We stopped assuming people understood our products.

We added videos to the sites. We added explainer content. We've streamlined landing pages. Uh, we created specific customer journeys that didn't rely on existing knowledge, right? We made every touch point clearer and easier to follow for our mobile customers. It's really important. So the way the way you do this is you, you take out your phone.

You watch somebody use your website right on the phone, not you, 'cause you know, the website, go to someone that doesn't know it very well and if that, if your mum [00:18:00] doesn't know your website very well, go see your mum because there's something called the mum test, which I think is super powerful.

Just watch your mum, use the website on your phone and don't say anything.

Just take lots of notes, right, and look at every single touch point, uh, that she encounters whilst using your website. And ask yourself, how can I make that quicker? How can I make it clearer? How can I make it easier? How can I make it better? You are very quickly gonna come up with a list of things that you can do to optimize your mobile browsing experience.

Right. Especially if they get stuck somewhere. If they don't understand it. If your mom's like my mom, my mom's a legend. Um. She will not be able to keep her thoughts quiet. God bless my mom. I love her so much and I give her these things to do. And I can just put a tape recorder. I showed you how old, I'm right, a tape recorder.

I actually have one of these special AI recording devices now, but I still call it a tape recorder. You know, some habits are hard to shift, uh, but I [00:19:00] can just put that down next to her and just take some notes and record the entire conversation. Mom cannot help but speak her stream of consciousness, which is a beautiful thing.

Uh, so we looked at the mobile strategy. The other thing that we did was we also looked at the content strategy. So we shifted that a little bit. And so again, in the content we started to talk about summer, um, we looked at what people would need during this period, things they might not have thought about, um, and connected our mess, our messaging directly to how customers were actually thinking about their own summer plants.

If you've heard me talk about this before. Um, you, and

I'm a big fan of the idea of marketing or messaging and branding is the intersection of two circles. The first circle is: my story. As in my company story, what I care about. But the second circle, which is really important, is the [00:20:00] customer's story.

What they care about, what's going on with them. Where those two things inter interact, that's where branding should be. That's where messaging should be. And customers think differently over, summer of they have a different story, and so we need to connect around that, right? The other thing that we thought about, uh, was customer acquisition.

Uh, and, and sort of thinking about that because if everyone else is pulling back their efforts, what if we increased ours to take advantage of that? Right now, like I said, for me, one of our company's sites, uh, one of the sites we're involved with the sales fell, if I'm honest with you, that has some bigger operational issues that we are working through.

So next summer's gonna be much better. But the other company, which is a lot more established, their sales group by 19%, like I said, year on year, what should have been our slowest period was. [00:21:00] Driven significantly. When I look at the numbers, like

80% of that growth was from new customers rather than just doing discounted offers to existing customers.

Right. Really, really impressive how the team have managed to pull that off. And again, something that we've learned if people are not doing as much advertising in summer, 'cause they feel like their sales are going down, they're not doing much promotion. How can I increase mines? Take advantage of that.

' Cause the ads are gonna be cheaper. Yes. The market's gonna be smaller maybe. But what could I do? Some really important questions there, I feel right. And the impact for us has actually been remarkable. Like I said, summer sales grew, but the, what's interesting is the consequence of that. On September, so I'm halfway through September and already we're 25% ahead on our September sales.

So it seems like the momentum has carried forward into September, right? The, [00:22:00] the sort of the summer sales, or the way we've approached Summa has sort of altered the trajectory for the rest of the year moving forward. Time will tell if that actually comes to pass. I can only report on what I see. So I've come away with the belief that if everyone else accepts that, you know, summer as an in inevitable sort of downtime, well in my head there's a massive opportunity and simply staying engaged and thinking a little bit more strategically.

' cause everyone's thinking about their holiday. Let's make the most of that, right? My competitors are thinking about a weak into heat tea or wherever. I mean, why would you not? Uh, but I can take advantage of that. Now, there is some fascinating data that emerged during the UK heat waves that I just wanna draw your attention to, which is gonna help you here a little bit.

I think now when temperatures hit. Record breaking levels for the uk. Like I say, everyone [00:23:00] else's things is warm. We're like, man, this is amazing. We hit 30 degrees. Woohoo. Uh, but so when we hit these, I'm still laughing about it now 'cause I'm British, you know, we've gotta laugh about weather. There's all we can do.

Um, what happened was

when we hit those temperatures, sales from e-commerce websites fell. They fell significantly.

The exact number according to the research that I've done is 47.8%, which is a very precise number. So 50%, let's just round it up 'cause it's easy. 50% revenues fall by 50% during peak temperatures.

I dunno if you've noticed this on your website. To the point. Now we haven't done this yet, but in our development plan for our website, I want to start tracking sales with weather reports. So how we do this, I don't know, but I want to understand how weather, [00:24:00] uh, affects our sales and start to do some predictions here because.

Obviously the weather in England's gonna have an impact on our UK sales, but what's the, like, what about our US sales? We export to the states. What impact does weather have there where it's maybe a bit more consistent or to continental Europe or Australia? We strip ship to Australia, so I'm curious to see how that works.

So building a system that tracks weather alongside sales. It's gonna pro, hopefully produce some interesting data for it. Um, and you might say to me, well, you see there, Matty weather kills e-commerce sales, which is why some of sales fall. 'cause the weather goes up, sales go down, but, and yes, I get that, but dig a little deeper and you'll find that revenue on websites increased by almost 20%.

In the week before the heat wave as people prepared for the extreme conditions so people knew the heat wave was coming. Especially in the uk we watched the weather [00:25:00] religiously, and so if we think next week's gonna be good, we buy this week what we would buy next week so we can enjoy next week's weather.

And this is fascinating to me. It perfectly illustrates why conversions matter, perhaps more than traffic pattern shifts, because during summer, well, I lemme just caveat that there are times when conversion matters more than traffic pattern shifts. Um, and this may well be one of them, right? Uh, so for ex, if during summer, if, you know, mobile browsing increases, but overall traffic might be unpredictable due to weather, holidays, and changing routines.

Then actually every visitor to your website becomes more valuable, which is why we focused on the mobile browsing experience. We want to increase our conversion, and it's also why we focused heavily on making every customer touch point clearer the mum test, right? So when traffic patterns do change, [00:26:00] you can't afford to lose potential customers to confusion or poor user experience.

So, you know, if, if traffic goes down. Then actually the consequences of that with bad conversion is compounded, which is why at that point you really need to think about conversion. And so the businesses that thrive during the summer weren't ignoring the weather. They were actually planning for it. One of the, the, the key insights into all of this is to understand what's gonna happen with the weather, especially in the uk, uh, and plan for that and optimize for the reality that customer behavior becomes less predictable.

Potentially becomes more valuable when you, when you understand that insight, right? So all that, let's, let's bring all this into land, right? So this summer I've really enjoyed the. The lessons I suppose that I've learned from it, it's taught us, um, that

every default assumption in our business I think deserves systematic questioning.

Uh, [00:27:00] I Why should we just let them roam free? Some are slumps sort of felt inevitable because they were in effect and have become self-fulfilling prophecies, haven't they? Of course, summer's gonna go down because we think that way, because we think that way. We act that way. So we reduce staff, we reduce our marketing spend.

Which means our summer sales fall. And so it becomes self-fulfilling. And when entire industries expect decreased activity, I think they collectively keep sort of create the conditions to make that become true. But like I said, if 80% of e-commerce traffic is now a mobile, and people use their mobiles more frequently during the summer.

I think summer's prime time for optimizing mobile experiences and forgetting some of these default assumptions and going, no, let me think about this differently. Right? If consumers were making summer purchase decisions in March and April, which we kind of know that they are, and again, check [00:28:00] for your industry, but we kind of know that they are on average, well then shouldn't that mean that we, we should ramp up?

Marketing at these points rather than when we're planning, you know, our August holidays when it's perhaps all a little bit too late. Just putting that out there. And if our competitors are operating on skeleton cruises during summer, um, because you know, they're all on holiday and the owner's thinking about going on holiday, well, isn't that precisely the time when exceptional customer service could have been a powerful differentiator for you and your business?

I don't know. I'm just putting that out there. I'm not saying it is. I'm not saying it isn't. I'm just questioning the default. Right. So how do you as a business actually implement this for next year? Right. All this is great. Matt. How do we implement it? Give me some practical steps, please, brother. Well,

first is this: audit your summer's assumptions.

And like I say, because we're st we're just literally out of [00:29:00] summer. Um. Think about it. If you have a team, think about it with your team. If it's just you and a, a partner or something, again, just brainstorm. Write down everything your business considered normal about summer 2025 trading, right? Uh, think about what your revenue expectations were.

Staffing levels, marketing spend, product launches, customer behavior patterns. Think about all of them. What were your assumptions? The more you can name them. The better off you'll be and don't rush it. Spend a better time here. Right? The second thing, once you've done that is question the why behind every assumption.

And I would suggest you

don't just question it once, but repeatedly.

Like if my assumption is sales, were gonna drop. Why? Why did I think that? Why did sales drop if they did? Why did customers behave differently? Why did [00:30:00] we reduce our ad spend or activity maybe during these months? And keep asking until you reach, reach assumptions that might not actually be based on facts.

They're just assumptions. They're just the way it's always been.

And the third thing: I think plan.

Like I said, you've got plenty of time now to think about. I say plenty of time 'cause I appreciate Black Fridays around the corner and you're probably thinking a lot about that. Carve out some time. Um, plan experiments for next year.

I'm not talking about huge business pivots, right? But sort of thoughtful tests and different approaches that you could have a go at next summer. What if you increased email frequency during typical quiet periods? What if you prepared inventory for weather related demand spikes? What if. What if, it's a great question.

What if you prepared, uh, you know, a, a unique [00:31:00] campaign, uh, for next summer that sort of connected with your customer's story on summer?

What if you treated June and August as actually your competitive advantage period where you could really get one up on your competitors?

Just good school for thought, isn't it?

I think

the biggest opportunities often hide inside the assumptions that everyone accepts without question.

And while competitors plan to survive next summer, you could capture market share from people who still need your products and services. I know you can do it 'cause we've done it, right? And while others decrease marketing spend, maybe it's time, like I say, for you to actually increase it.

And whilst the industry collectively shifts into survival mode. Maybe you could be identifying the specific behaviors and patterns that create these wonderful and beautiful and lovely opportunities for our businesses, rather than just assuming summer slumps. Just putting [00:32:00] that out there. Right? So we know that people are still spending money over summer, maybe not as much, but I think there's still competitive advantage in there.

Right? And we also know that consumers spend differently. Over summer and understanding those differences is where your marketing advantage is gonna be, not just in your mobile browsing experience, although that's a really good thing, and maybe next year you plan to do a real big mobile review around that sort of April may time.

That would be a good time to do it, right? We know, uh, customers now are making summer decisions earlier in the year, but they're putting off spend on bigger things like holidays. Trying to go a bit more last minute. Uh, we know that customers more and more, especially in the uk, are expanding, uh, or responding to weather patterns and seasonal sort of psychology, I suppose, in predictable ways.

So the question isn't whether summer affects your business. It's whether you're gonna let [00:33:00] this summers it conventional wisdom, uh, dictate next year's response, or whether you're gonna challenge the default one of my favorite expressions, uh, and create opportunities where others, you know. Plan for obstacles.

Honestly doing this exercise, like most e-commerce founders I work with are, well, let's just say they're more than a little bit surprised when they examine their, uh, default thinking around seasonal impacts on their business. And there's definitely opportunities that have been left on the table by defaulting to.

These sort of industry patterns or ways of thinking. There's always opportunities, not just for me and my business, but for every business I've done coaching with or in Canada or partner with. There's always something there. So it's definitely a worthwhile exercise doing. And to help you, let me tell you about this month's freebie.

We use something called the challenge, the default grid. Uh, [00:34:00] yes we do. So I do appreciate probably needs a better name, but challenge in the default grid. Is a tool I think for questioning any business assumption that feels like, you know, this is the way it's gotta work and it's gonna help you challenge that default.

It leads you through a series of questions that we use internally and that I've used with clients, um, to help you get your head around this is the way the default is. We understand why that's the way the default is, and then we look for opportunities outside of that. And then there's a framework for deciding which opportunities you should work on.

You can get access to that for free.

It's on the eCommerce Podcast dot net website. Uh, just go there, click on, uh, the. Resources tab and you will find a link in there for the unDefault grid. Go ahead, download that. It's A PDF. It's totally free. And in there I also show you some examples, so of how I would [00:35:00] complete the grid.

So one of the grid examples I've given you is around summer slumps. Okay? So this very thing that we have been talking about, I have filled out the un default grid, and you can have a look at how I would've done that. Um. I put one in there just because I, I want you to see that you can use this grid in so many different ways.

I actually put one in there about, um, getting healthy but never really having the time to do it. Something that, you know, a number of people I know have struggled with over the years, including me, actually, um, until we built some better habits. And so there's a grid in there which shows you how it works there, just to give you, um.

Some understanding of how you can use this grid in different ways, but do check that out. Like I say, it's on eCommerce Podcast dot net. It's really gonna help you identify alternatives that you might not have considered. For next summer's sales, it takes, how long does it take to fill [00:36:00] out? That's a good question.

I think you need to put aside at least 30 minutes, um, to fill it out. I, I think the more time you put into it, the better, and typically what you come out with at the end of completing that grid, I would say you're gonna get one or two immediate. Tasks that you can work on. We try and make it so you don't get more than that because we don't wanna create overwhelm.

Um, and we give you a framework for how to make you know the right decision there. But it's really gonna help you. It's gonna give you one or two key things that you can use to sort of tweak in your business. And you can use the grid for Black Friday, you can use it for Christmas, you can use it for summer, use it for whatever.

All you've gotta do is challenge the default and that's gonna help you do it right. It just provides this framework, I think, for challenging these sort of. Assumptions that we have, rather than just accepting, accepting, accepting the inevitable. Um, so like I say, it's completely free. [00:37:00] Uh, go find it at eCommerce Podcast dot net.

If you're on YouTube, I'll put the link in the description. If you're listening to the audio podcast, we will put the link in the show notes as well. And of course, if you are subscribed to our newsletter, then we will put a link to it in the newsletter. Uh, and you can just go and grab that for free. Uh, make sure you stay connected with us.

' cause every month we're gonna start putting these freebies out, these tools and things that we use to help grow our e-com businesses. So they're hopefully gonna help you and, hey. If no one's told you yet today, let me be the first. You are awesome. Yes, you are created. Awesome. It's just a burden you have to bear.

Now that's it from me. Hopefully you got some value outta this. Uh, would love to know your thoughts, write 'em in the comments, or connect with me on LinkedIn. Let me know that way, uh, would really appreciate it. And, uh, if you haven't done so yet, check out the website eCommerce Podcast dot net. Like I say, you can get the freebies there.

You can find out all the other stuff that we're doing that you can connect with. Really appreciate you guys, appreciate what you're doing. Keep going. 'cause [00:38:00] digital, Davids as I like to call us, us E-commerce can change the world in so many ways. Keep going. You're doing a great job, uh, and it's great to be part of that journey with you.

I will see you next week.

Bye for now.