When is the best time to buy a lawn mower? It might sound like a gardening question, but the answer reveals a great deal about seasonal pricing strategies, and the decisions business owners make about stock, cash flow and profit.

It’s probably not a question you expected a business adviser to ask. But bear with me, because the answer tells us rather a lot about running a business. The obvious response is winter. Nobody’s cutting the grass. Demand has fallen. Surely retailers will be practically giving the things away?

I’m not convinced.

My money would be on the end of the mowing season, when a retailer looks at a warehouse full of machines and starts thinking about everything else that space and money could be used for. That doesn’t mean every mower will be cheapest then. But it does expose a weakness in the usual advice.

The best buying opportunity may come when the seller’s need to sell is greatest.

And understanding that distinction matters whether you sell lawn mowers, garden furniture, Christmas decorations or anything else with a seasonal sales pattern.

1. Low Demand Doesn’t Automatically Mean Low Prices

The assumption behind buying out of season sounds perfectly reasonable. Fewer customers must mean sellers have to work harder for each sale. Lower prices should follow. But it leaves out an important question.

Does the retailer actually need to sell?

Imagine a garden machinery dealer in the middle of winter. They’ve already cleared most of their seasonal stock. The handful of mowers remaining are models they’re comfortable carrying into spring.

They have storage space. Their cash position is manageable. They expect those machines to sell when the grass starts growing again. What would persuade them to offer a substantial discount today? You might want a bargain. That doesn’t mean they have a reason to give you one.

Now consider the customer who walks in looking for a mower in December. Perhaps it’s a present. Perhaps they’re replacing a particular machine. Perhaps they’ve moved house and want to get organised.

We cannot assume that an unusual purchase date makes someone desperate. But equally, we cannot assume that every winter buyer is a bargain hunter.

The calendar tells you when someone is buying. It doesn’t tell you why.

The same is true of the seller.

2. Why I’d Look Towards the End of the Season

Now rewind to the point when the main selling season is drawing to a close. The retailer still has twenty mowers in stock. They expected to sell more. The weather didn’t help. One model proved less popular than anticipated. Whatever the reason, the machines are still there. Meanwhile, the business has decisions to make.

• Where will the next seasonal range go? 
• How much money is tied up in those boxes? 
• Will a replacement model arrive before the remaining machines sell?

At that point, holding out for the full asking price starts to carry a cost. A mower sold today at a lower margin releases cash and space. A mower kept until next spring might earn more, but it also has to be stored, financed and sold later. That creates a reason to negotiate.

The retailer may offer a discount, include an accessory, provide delivery or put together a package that makes the purchase more attractive.

There is still enough customer interest to make a sale, but a shrinking window in which the retailer wants to make it.

That’s why I think the end of the season is a more interesting place to look than the depths of winter.

3. Seasonal Stock Management: The Money Sitting in Your Warehouse

Business owners can become strangely attached to stock. They know what they paid for it. They know what they intended to sell it for. And they don’t want to “give it away”.

I understand that. But the price on the label doesn’t tell you what keeping it will cost.

Suppose a retailer has £10,000 tied up in seasonal stock. That is £10,000 they cannot currently use to pay suppliers, reduce borrowing or buy something their customers want now. The stock might eventually sell at full price. It might also need discounting later, after several months of occupying space and tying up cash. The useful question is:

“From today onwards, which option produces the better commercial outcome?”

That requires a comparison between selling now and holding for later, including the likely selling price, storage costs, financing costs and risk of the stock losing appeal. Sometimes waiting is sensible. Sometimes accepting a lower margin today is the better decision. Refusing to consider a discount doesn’t make those costs disappear.

4. Discounting and Profit Margins: What a Price Cut Really Costs

Before anyone takes this as permission to put a sale sign in the window, there is another side to the argument. Discounting can be expensive. Let’s use a simple example, with all figures excluding VAT.

• You sell a product for £500. It costs you £350.
• Your gross profit is £150, giving you a gross margin of 30%.
• You decide to offer a 10% discount. The customer now pays £450, but your product still costs £350.

Your gross profit falls to £100.

A 10% price reduction has removed one-third of your gross profit per sale.

To generate the same total gross profit, you would need to sell 50% more units, assuming the same product cost and no additional costs from handling the extra sales. That may be worthwhile if it clears surplus stock and releases cash you need elsewhere. But “we’ll make it up in volume” needs a calculation behind it.

A clearance decision should have a commercial purpose, a defined scope and an understanding of what it costs.

5. Are You Solving the Customer’s Problem?

There is another complication. A lower price doesn’t automatically create a reason to buy. Offer me a discounted mower when I need one, and you may have my attention. Offer me the same mower when I have a perfectly good machine in the shed, and the discount may achieve nothing.

The retailer needs to understand which customers might act before the season ends. That could include someone whose mower is struggling, a homeowner planning to replace an old machine next spring, or a gardener looking for a suitable backup. The offer then needs to connect with that situation. 

“Ten per cent off” is a price statement. “If you’re planning to replace your mower next spring, here’s a reason to do it now” gives the customer a decision to consider. The offer still has to make financial sense. But at least it addresses a plausible motivation.

A discount works best when it helps someone make a purchase they have a reason to consider.

6. Best Value Isn’t Always the Lowest Price

I’ve deliberately asked when to buy a mower, rather than simply when it will be cheapest. Those aren’t necessarily the same question. A clearance machine might be a bargain. It might also be too small for your garden, awkward to use or a model you would never have chosen without the reduced-price sticker.

Buying the wrong mower cheaply is still buying the wrong mower.

Value includes suitability, reliability, availability, delivery, support and servicing. That gives the seller more options than simply reducing the price. Could they include delivery? Offer an accessory the customer needs? Add a first service? Help the buyer choose and set up the right machine?

Each option has a cost, and that cost needs checking. But some may create more value for the customer than they cost the business to provide. For business owners, this is worth remembering whenever a customer asks for a better deal.

Find out what would make the purchase more valuable to them before assuming the answer must be a lower price.

7. The Clearance Sale Begins With a Buying Decision

By the time a business is trying to clear unwanted stock, some of its options have already disappeared. The buying decision has been made. The cash has been committed. The season is nearly over.

That’s why seasonal pricing starts much earlier than the sale.

It starts when you decide what to order, how much to hold and what sales assumptions to use.

A supplier’s bulk discount can look attractive. But saving money per unit is of limited comfort if you buy far more units than you can sell.

I’d want a seasonal business to answer a few questions before committing:

• What do we realistically expect to sell?
• What happens if demand is lower than expected?
• Can we reorder during the season?
• When will we review slow-moving stock?
• At what point would clearing it become preferable to holding it?

You won’t forecast everything correctly. Weather, competition and customer behaviour will see to that.

But you can decide in advance how you will respond.

That is considerably better than reaching the end of the season and discovering that your purchasing plan depended on everything going right.

8. Don’t Teach Customers to Wait for the Sale

There’s a longer-term risk too. If customers learn that everything is discounted at the same point every year, some will simply wait. Your clearance strategy can start undermining your full-price sales. That doesn’t mean you should never run an end-of-season offer. It means you should be clear about what qualifies and why.

Clearing a discontinued model or a limited quantity of surplus stock is a specific decision. Discounting the entire range because the calendar has reached a particular date is a much broader one. The question is whether your promotion is helping you manage stock or encouraging customers to postpone purchases they would otherwise have made at full price.

Those outcomes can look remarkably similar in the sales report. Their effect on profit can be very different.

9. Look for the Motivation Behind the Transaction

The lawn mower question applies well beyond garden machinery. Whenever you buy or sell, it helps to understand what is driving the other party’s decision. A seller might want to release cash, clear space, fill unused capacity or move an outgoing range.

A buyer might need something urgently, be planning ahead or require reassurance that the product will do the job. The opportunity sits in understanding those circumstances.

• For the buyer, that means looking beyond the assumption that “out of season equals cheap”.
• For the business owner, it means looking beyond the assumption that “quiet sales require a discount”.

Before changing the price, understand the pressure, the motivation and the alternatives.

So, When Would I Buy the Mower?

If I could plan the purchase, I’d start looking towards the end of the mowing season. I’d look for a retailer with suitable stock they had a commercial reason to move. Then I’d compare the complete offer, including support and servicing, with the alternatives.

I wouldn’t assume that every clearance sticker represented a bargain. And I wouldn’t buy an unsuitable machine just because somebody wanted it out of their warehouse. But the bigger lesson is for the business owner standing on the other side of the counter.

Do you know when your stock becomes a burden? Do you understand what your discounts cost? Have you planned how to respond if the season disappoints?

Or are you relying on next spring to put everything right?

If your business experiences seasonal peaks and troughs, let’s have a one-to-one conversation. We can look at your pricing, stock commitments and cash flow, and identify where a better plan could protect your profit.

Because helping you build a better business sometimes starts with an unexpected question.

Like when to buy a lawn mower.