Sweet Holiday For Online Retailers
Web market research firm BizRate.com is forecasting that an estimated 6.5 million Valentine orders will be placed online this Valentine's Day season, yielding an estimated $642 million in sales. More than 50% of online buyers say they plan to purchase Valentine's Day gifts over the Internet, most of whom (87%) did not buy Valentine's Day gifts online last year.
Survey respondents said flowers (38%) and eGreeting cards (34%) top their gift selections for the holiday. Least popular gifts were gift certificates (8%) and travel (7%).
Overall, only 14% of survey participants tend to agree that buying online is not romantic, with more men (17%) than women (10%) viewing Internet shopping for this holiday to be less romantic. A sizable portion of both genders were in close agreement, however, that buying online avoids the embarrassment associated with purchasing intimate Valentine's Day gifts from brick and mortar retailers, says Los Angeles-based BizRate. Some 26% of men and 23% of women considered the ability to shop in anonymity a benefit of online shopping. Shopping online also provides an outlet for 32% of men and 29% of women to buy things that they would never buy offline, the research shows.
Other findings include that 32% of online buyers will spend up to $50 for Valentine gifts, while another 32% will spend between $50 and $100 and 16% will spend between $100 and $200. If offered a discount on Valentine's Day items, 61% of online buyers said they would purchase more gifts online. Men (49%) are far more likely than women (27%) to purchase flowers as Valentine gifts. Women (42%) are far more likely than men (26%) to send eGreeting cards as Valentine gifts.
Conducted over the last three days of January, the survey compiled real-time feedback from more than 30,000 online buyers at the point of sale, BizRate says.
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