Mild Winter Is Bad News for Some Firms : Sales of Snowblowers, Snowmobiles Hurt

With only a dusting of snow on the ground in many parts of the northern United States, retail snowblower sales are in low gear after a strong preseason selling period, and snowmobile makers are concerned about a slump in 1987, manufacturers said Monday.

“If you know how to do a snow dance, I wish you’d join in,” said Rich Mueller, director of marketing at Toro Co. of Bloomington, Minn., the largest U.S. manufacturer of snowblowers. “Now that we haven’t had any snow, the retails are down quite a bit, but I don’t know what the percentages are.”

Dale Branch, meteorologist at the Minneapolis office of the National Weather Service, said a jet stream of Pacific air blowing from west to east has pushed most of the snow this season into Canada, leaving “very little snow cover across the (United States).”

Mueller said long-range weather forecasts in the fall were for a severe winter, which may have contributed to heavy preseason snowblower sales in September, October and early November.

Toro has posted sales and earnings increases in each of the past three years. In fiscal 1986, the company had net income of $15.5 million on sales of $406.6 million, Mueller said.

But with no snow to shovel in December, retailers suffered, he said.

“January will tell the story,” Mueller said. “If there’s no snow and they aren’t buying in January, consumers are more apt to say: ‘I can get by shoveling a few more snowfalls and get one next year.’ ”

But like snowmobile manufacturers, Toro won’t feel the financial pinch from a winter of light snow until the following season. The bulk of the company’s sales to dealers is made before snow is an issue, and retailers may reduce their orders for the winter of 1987-88.

“It’s going to be the enthusiasm that wanes a little bit” if snow continues to be scarce, said Marlys Knutson, marketing communications manager for Polaris Industries of Minneapolis, one of four major snowmobile manufacturers in the world. “But so far it hasn’t had much of a bearing on us.”

Knutson said nearly all snowmobile sales occur in September and November. And after three good winters, demand for the recreational vehicles was up during the fall, she said.

Polaris sales in fiscal 1986 were $90 million, up 40% from the previous year when sales were $53.7 million.