Study Shows Valentine’s Day Shoppers Enjoy Making Purchases Online

In our last blog, we highlighted the fact that gift cards make excellent Valentine’s Day gifts. This is especially true for last minute shoppers. Although there is still over a week to go before the big day, there are many individuals who will wait until February 13th to buy gifts for their romantic partners. It should also be noted that many of those last minute shoppers will prefer to do their Valentine’s Day shopping online.

As April Berthene points out on DigitalCommerce360.com, February 13th is a “peak spending day for Valentine’s Day products” with flowers being the most highly sought-after last minute gifts. Based on data from e-commerce analytics firm, Slice Intelligence, on February 13th last year, flowers accounted for 57 percent of all web sales of Valentine’s Day’s most popular gifts – jewelry, chocolate, stuffed animals and flowers.

Valentine’s Day gifts dominate online spending in the first two weeks of February.

These four products, in fact, accounted for more than half (54 percent) of all web sales in the first two weeks of February in 2017. Ken Cassar is the principal analyst for Slice Intelligence. “Because there are so many same- or next-day delivery options for flowers, that category does uniquely well at the last minute,” he is quoted as saying in Berthene’s article. He goes on to point out, however, that Valentine’s Day shoppers who procrastinate until the last minute end up paying more for the products they buy.

“Odds are that buyers who waited until the last minute are going to have to pay elevated shipping and handling fees,” he notes, “Since they’re getting stuck with shipping and handling fees anyway, consumers seem to throw frugality to the wind, significantly upping their spend as Valentine’s Day approaches.”

What else did the study say about Valentine’s Day shopping last year?

“Shoppers spent on average $48.86 on Feb. 13 for flowers, which is about a 27% increase compared with the average $38.53 spent Feb. 1-12,” informs Berthene, “Spending on jewelry increased nearly 21% to $60.91 on Feb. 13, compared with $50.50 spent on orders placed Feb. 1-12, according to Slice. Online shoppers’ spending in these categories dropped further after Valentine’s Day, as online shoppers spent between 16.9%-21.7% less on average on these products.”

What this tells us is that an e-commerce solution is an incredibly important necessity for a variety of retailers. In the days leading up to Valentine’s Day, stores are bound to have their websites welcome significant increases in traffic. Retailers who don’t provide their customers with the ability to make purchases directly from their websites are clearly losing out.

How can Canadian POS Corporation help you to boost your Valentine’s Day sales?

We proudly offer Canadian business owners the opportunity to take advantage of an e-commerce solution that provides everything you need to securely accept credit cards online. Our secure e-commerce solution enables you to easily and securely accept and process all credit cards – Visa, MasterCard, Discover Network, American Express – directly from your website.

Secure real-time transaction processing and advanced risk management tools protect your online business from fraud. And because you’ll have a direct connection to our powerful and reliable processing network, you can eliminate the costs and complexities of dealing with a third-party gateway provider.

For more information about our e-commerce solution, call Canadian POS Corporation at 1-877-748-2884 or email us at info@localhost.