Valentine’s Day 2016

Valentine’s Day 2016

Summary
While this year saw more consumers do something to mark Valentine’s, the percentage of those that spent less than last year was still higher than those that spent more. Furthermore, while just under half of all consumers purchased a card/wrap or gift item, views on Valentine’s remain broadly negative – with consumers feeling it is a waste of money and too commercial. Enthusiasm for Valentine’s was markedly higher among younger, 18–34 year old consumers this year, and this is a trend that retailers must take advantage of. For example, in gifts, while purchase penetration overall was 46.4%, the same figures were above 60% for 18–34s.

Key Findings
Pleasingly for the UK’s biggest grocer, Tesco made strong gains this year to make it the leading Valentine’s retailer in both gifting and food & grocery. In gifting, Tesco was the most used retailer overall, increasing its usage by 7.0ppts on last year to 17.1%, while in food and grocery, it was the leading retailer both for overall usage and as the most used retailer.

While just under half of consumers (47.2%) chose to do nothing to celebrate Valentine’s this year, this was a 6.8ppts decline on last year, and an 8.1ppts drop on 2014. However, this did not necessarily translate to an uplift in spending and 22.8% of consumers stated they spent less this year on Valentine’s compared to the 21.1% that said they spent more.

Valentine’s continues to be a major battleground for the grocers, enhanced by the event falling on a Sunday this year. Marketing was prominent both online and instore, with meal deals a key battleground, even for players like Iceland, while Co-op focused on breakfast in bed products. Tesco has emerged as the grocery winner for Valentine’s Day this year, with last year’s winner, Asda, faltering.

Valentine’s gift purchases are typically made with a view to impressing the recipient and, for this reason, quality resonates as the most important driver of store choice (39.9%). In addition, a more confident consumer is now clearly less concerned about the cost of gift purchasing, with the importance of low prices declining by some 4.7ppts for Valentine’s this year.

Synopsis
The Valentine’s report offers a comprehensive insight into the retail occasions spend in the UK, analysing the market, the major players, the main trends, and consumer attitudes.

It provides in-depth analysis of the following:

Key Findings

Consumer Attitudes

Food & Drink

Gifts

Card & Gift-wrap

Reasons To Buy
Utilise the detailed data and insight on the market to help form an effective growth strategy for upcoming occasions

Understand who are the target demographic and their key issues and demands

Identify the opportunities to grow business during these occasions.

Understand the journey of consumers throughout the process of purchases.