Chocolates, toys, jewelry and greeting cards – Valentine’s Day is all about celebrating love and affection. Considered as one of the most widely-loved occasion, Valentine’s Day has its roots in the Christian mythology. Noticeably, the holiday didn’t have any romantic connotations until the 14th century after which people started calling and believing it a day of love and affection. Interestingly, the way it’s celebrated these days was literally unknown until the start of the 18th century in which the idea of giving gifts and greeting cards gained momentum. Thanks to the contribution of Richard Cadbury, who introduced the idea of presenting chocolates in specialized heart-shaped boxes that inspired many brands and marketing companies to come up with their own exclusive Valentine’s Day range that gained immense popularity and fame amongst couples who’re on continuous lookout to surprise their significant others with amazing and heart-melting goods and products.
While there are many people who still admire and value this day of love, for others, it’s just a normal occasion that adds to their expense list and increases anxiety and stress in one way or the other.
The Pearl Source, one of the most-renowned online pearl retailers based in the United States took this confusion as a challenge and conducted Valentine’s Day Research based on two key areas including the relationship health and the impact of financial burden on one’s life trying to allocate a big portion of his or her income on buying stuff like chocolates, jewelry or for a lavished dinner just to make their partners happy.
In order to understand what others think about all these formalities, The Pearl Source polled 1,000 men and women across different age groups, educational backgrounds and income levels. The results attained from this research were quite astonishing as it turns out that Valentine’s Day is causing more harm than good for everyone’s life who need to dedicate their time and finances just to celebrate something they believe is just a waste of time and money.
What Were the Findings?
The Pearl Source decided to begin with the most basic question, ‘Do you really like an idea of celebrating this day?’
Nearly a third could do without celebrating Valentine’s Day. According to the massive 30% of the total respondents, Valentine’s Day is a mere waste of time. They even call it a ‘hallmark holiday’ that forces people to disturb their budgets and spend on things that are totally unnecessary and useless. In response to ‘who would abolish the holiday right away?’ nearly 19% men and 10% women, making almost half of the 30% said they would abolish this holiday right away if it was in their hands.
So, it is pretty clear that the reality is very different than what we see on social media and television. It seems not everyone is interested in wearing red and doing impulsive buying on stuff that’s not required at that particular time of the year.
The next research question was about Valentine’s Day and its impact on the health and wellbeing of the relationships. For a day that is cherished as the day of love, compatibility and celebration worldwide, many survey respondents said they feel overwhelmed and stressed when this day is about to come. Not only it’s a fake holiday, but it also raises so many questions and standard bars fulfilling all of them could be a struggle for an average person. For instance, many people believe that they have to think a lot about finding an out of the box surprise and also need to arrange finances to seek attention of their loved ones. The idea of celebrating Valentine’s Day has become so commercial that it’s more about throwing money rather than showering love or trust. 20% of all respondents said that this day is not at all productive or healthy for their relationships. In fact, it creates complexes and competition that further leads to hatred and misunderstandings. Out of those 20%, 41% believed that it sets false definitions of what love and romance is. It is just a materialistic event that revolves around worldly things (expensive and extravagant to be specific) that has nothing to do with the pure and real emotions like love and sentiments. Surprisingly, more women (45%) felt that way if compared with the 33% ratio of men. The second most common reason of not appreciating this day was given by men who believed that Valentine’s Day always brings in a lot of commitment pressure. Even 50% of those who named this day a ‘hallmark holiday’ felt that Valentine’s Day is not at all healthy for their relationships.
The disappointment factor is the next highlighted thing in the research that clearly shows that the pressure isn’t just confined to our heads. Over 70% of the total survey respondents said that they’ve never disappointed their partners on Valentine’s Day while the 40% said they were disappointed by their significant others on this so-called day of love. As expected, women won the confidence game as more than 80% of women said that they have never disappointed their partners on the Valentine’s Day and did whatever in their capacity to make their spouses or partners happy. Interestingly, only 63% of men acknowledged this statement.
Many people dislike Valentine’s Day as they literally need to adjust their finances to buy something special for their partner. Finances and Valentine’s Day was the next research question that highlighted the struggle people had to make in order to make their Valentine’s Day special and memorable for their significant others. According to research conducted by NRF, 2019 was a colossal year for Valentine’s Day spending. According to the report, the average person spent massive $161.96 which was $143.56 last year and it’s still growing.
Nearly 35 of total respondents said that they feel overwhelmed and financially stressed when Valentine’s Day is about to come. Financial burden was one of the biggest hurdles people had with this holiday. Many people said they had to do overtime or acquire a side gig just to bear the expenses of the Valentine’s Day. The research statistics suggest that 2% spend $500 or more on their Valentine’s shopping, 3% spend about $301-$500, 16% spend in between $101-$300, 25% spend around $51-$100 while the massive 42% spend no more than $25-$50.
14% of total survey respondents said they’re already in debt from the holiday season and are not interested in taking up additional burden on Valentine’s Day. Over 13% said that they have to do extra shifts to bear the Valentine’s Day expenditure while 6% and 7% said that they will have to borrow money from their friends and family to celebrate this Day and use their credit cards to bear the expense respectively.
The next research question was to assess the willingness of the respondents that how much money would they prefer to spend on their Valentine’s shopping. Out of all respondents, nearly 47% said they would be able to spend maximum $50 on Valentine’s Day and 30% out of those 47% still believed that it’s just a forceful event and it’s absolutely unnecessary to celebrate this occasion in the first place.
In order to assess the most popular Valentine’s Day gift trends, the research had a dedicated section about what couples prefer to gift each other or what they have in mind to surprise their significant other on Valentine’s Day. Nearly 56% of women said that they would purchase chocolates to surprise their partners, 40% picked greeting cards while 30% selected jewelry as a Valentine’s Day giveaway.
When asked the same question from men, nearly 51% preferred chocolate, 43% said they will choose flowers to make their partners happy while 36% would like to stick to fancy greeting cards to surprise their better halves.
Since, Valentine’s Day is all about love, the element of self-love should not be neglected at all. Upon asking what respondents would like to gift themselves, 62% of women would love to treat themselves with chocolates, 29% would buy some fragrant flowers to make them feel happy while 25% would invest in exclusive jewelry to make their day special.
As far as men are concerned, 54% would like to buy chocolates for themselves, 33% would love to go for a lavished dinner while 23% would buy some jewelry to please themselves.
Last but not the least, the research also highlighted the impact of Valentine’s Day on the sale or revenue of retailers. While, the general misconception is that the retailers must be earning extremely good in festive seasons especially Valentine’s Day, the fact is that the holiday time is basically a tough sell for retailers. During holiday season, they have to bear additional marketing and advertising cost which is kind of unavoidable considering the ever growing competition in the retailing business. Nearly 72% or total retailers said that they need extra marketing budget around Valentine’s Day to promote their products while meager 28% said they don’t need any additional marketing to market their products around holiday season.
There are many specialized industries like jewelry that need to introduce massive deals and discounts around Valentine’s Day to attract customers. Since, many people do their shopping around Christmas and New Year, most of them are not really willing to spend more on jewelry or other expensive items. In order to create interest, retailers may have to introduce amazing discounts, promo codes and deals that can ensure the customers that they’re getting good value for their money.
In an attempt to find out the impact of Valentine’s Day on retailers and e-retailers, another survey of 500 retailers was conducted and it was found that most of them feel they have to invest some extra money on promotions and also provide discounts to the customers if they want their product or service to survive during holiday season.
Nearly 90% of retailers said that Valentine’s Day is not a lucrative opportunity for their business. Over 54% of those 90% said that customer’s spending habits during holidays aren’t the same as before while 49% believe that deep discounts and additional deals cut into margins. Nearly 38% believed that they have to spend hefty on marketing and advertising expense that offsets additional revenue during holiday season. Over 21% said that there’s a huge rise in marketing costs due to increased competition while 8% said that consumers are no more willing to spend on big ticket items like vehicles, jewelry or electronics around Valentine’s Day. All in all, it is pretty evident that retailers just like everyone dread Valentine’s Day too.
So, how do you plan to celebrate this Valentine’s?
