With the entire North Hemisphere in the grip of the worst winter in 30 years (that’s what Sky News says anyway), the online Dating Industry is hoping for a winter boom.

It’s true that online businesses generally do better in bad weather as people stay at home more; however there is a big portion of normal seasonal activity as well.
I’ve been doing this for quite a few years now and historically December is poor. People are tied up in a series of parties and family events and this December was no exception. January so far has all the signs of being a record month, again that’s traditionally what happens. After two weeks at home with the family everyone is out looking for something new in their lives.
We at Dating Factory of course have to take into account that we are not UK/US centric, indeed a lot of our traffic comes from the Alpine States and Italy, all of whom are wondering what all the fuss is about, it’s only snow!!
Why am I making this point? Well it would be sad if the industry only got a January boost every 30 years. In my experience this is an annual trend you can track quite accurately. In some markets the weather may be causing this effect to be a little more exaggerated but largely it’s business as usual.
It would be sad if we’d spent all this money on systems, user experience and marketing to find out that we as an industry should be compared to the cycles of the taxi business. I think what we’ve built is much more substantial and robust than that.
Mark Harrison – VP Sales