‘Ghost’ month of August not necessarily bad for business

Going by Chinese tradition, August is an unlucky month for life-changing activities like getting married, getting engaged, building a house, doing renovations.  So it is in opening a business or starting business deals.  Some people in Hong Kong and Taiwan even avoid traveling or going swimming.

It is believed that in the seventh lunar month, the gates of the underworld  open to set free the spirits of the dead to wander among the living for 29 days.  The ghosts, however, can be benign, as they can be placated with food, prayers, paper notes, and other offerings.

So, is August an inauspicious month for doing business?

If you ask shop keepers in Taipei, for example, where throngs of people shop to stock up on food with which to befriend the spirits, the month is definitely great for business.   “In addition to pleasing the spirits, this makes people happy, and happy customers make us happy too.  it’s also a good for business there is no doubt,” said one supermarket manager in that Chinese city.   Needless to say, this store owner wasn’t  remiss in placating the ghosts with his own offerings.

In the Philippines, entrepreneurs don’t scrounge around making food and prayer offerings to disembodied spirits in August. Many Pinoy businessmen  are not even aware of the concept of  a “ghost month”.  Still, the month of August is considered, by and large, a slow period for business for various reasons.

Blame it on the weather, not ghosts

August in the Philippines is haunted by a different phenomenon, not remotely related to the spirit world.  August to October (sometimes stretching to November) is typhoon season and therefore can slow down business revenues.

Heavy rains and floods keep people home-bound.  They can’t go out to shop, watch movies, eat in restaurants and go to gyms, sauna and beauty parlors and other commercial places they would otherwise frequent.  Neither are they able to brave the foul weather to go to work to keep the mills of industry and commerce spinning.

For the business process outsourcing (BPO) companies, for example, whose nature of business demand 24/7 service, unexpected work stoppage from any cause, can have deleterious effects.  Such work cancellations can hurt the competitiveness of the Philippines as a BPO host country, said one Singapore-based think tank.

Another factor seen to cause the seasonal decline in August and the whole third quarter is the weakened purchasing power of buyers.  After all, they have just made big expenditures paying their taxes and preparing for school opening.

Still, forward-looking entrepreneurs take advantage of the business slump to get ready for the expected last-quarter sales peak.   They conduct staff training, launch promos  to pump sales, and conduct other marketing activities.

Hotels and resorts owners also use the time to prepare their businesses for the flurry of bookings that usually come in the fourth quarter.  They would direct aggressive marketing campaigns to the corporate sector for the meetings and conventions they mount.   Such preparations can translate into sales for the next period.

Nikki Cauton, CEO of Amorita Resort in Bohol, relates they would make use of the lean period to “take stock of where we are headed, to train our team and to refresh our rooms so that we’re ready for Christmas and the next summer months.”

Zig-zag effect on stock trading

In the Philippines, stock trading usually slows down during August.  But this year, it seems to have zigged and zagged.  The month opened with high value turnover transactions, only to slump by the middle of the month.  Still, market observers noted highly interesting and exciting stock plays overall, especially in the property and mining sectors.

How trading would go as the month closes is open to speculation.  There is possibility, however,  that the local stock market, which has been hitting record highs over the past year, has grown impervious to market dampeners, including ghosts.


Photo: “Pic: @definatalie’s August desktop under Gdesk, showing calendar this time” by David Jackmanson, c/o Flickr. Some Rights Reserved