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Seasonal gap

A seasonal gap is a part of the year when a store sells less than in a normal month and none of its main product categories is in season.

How it works

The portal reads seasonality for the store as a whole and for each product category. Most stores have weak months, and in some of those months another category peaks and fills the dip. A seasonal gap is a stretch where that does not happen: the store sells less than in a normal month, and no main category is strong.

The portal looks for a gap in the shape of two yearly cycles, not of a single year. It takes each month as a share of that year’s revenue, so a year with a smaller budget does not distort the shape, and a dip counts only if it repeats.

In GetProfit data on 96 stores (July 2025 – June 2026), 42 had two or more categories with at least 5% of revenue and 30 conversions each over the twelve months. In 25 of the 42, none of those categories had any of its three best months among the store’s three weakest, so nothing filled the dip. To find your own gap, see seasonality by category.

Where you see it

  • GetProfit portal: Assortment and seasonality lists a gap that falls in the next three months under “What to do now” as “your structurally weak period”, with its drop against a normal month two years in a row.

Example

Example store, not client data.

The tableware shop averages 180,000 a month in revenue, so three normal months bring 540,000. June to August bring 90,000 between them, a sixth of that. Its dinnerware, drinkware, flatware and serveware all sell best from October to December, so no category carries the summer: that is a seasonal gap. A counter-seasonal category such as picnic tableware is one way to fill it.

Not to be confused with

  • Off-season — the weak months of a store or of one category. They become a gap only when no other category is strong at the same time.

Right and wrong readings

  • Wrong: “The summer is our gap, so more budget will fill it.” Right: the dip reflects lower demand, not only a smaller budget. In the same 96 stores, ROAS in the three weakest months was, at the median, 0.70 of ROAS in the three best. So in most stores each unit of spend in a gap brings back less than at the peak.

Sources

  • GetProfit data: 96 online stores, July 2025 – June 2026, detrended monthly ad revenue — categories that cover the weak months, ROAS in weak and strong months.