After the January sales, Valentine’s Day is the biggest commercial event of the year in many areas of the world. And in contrast to other events, these celebrations won’t be significantly affected by the measures implemented as a result of the global pandemic: messages and actions to show closeness and affection to loved ones have increased in the last few months.
That’s why – although this year will be largely a digital celebration – sales forecasts for Valentine’s Day continue to look promising. On average, half of the population will celebrate, and in the United States it represents 27 billion dollars of spending. At times, Spain has been the world leader in sales on this date, with an average expenditure per person of between 100 and 200 euros.
Is this a good year to launch Valentine’s Day offers? Without a doubt, your customers will be doubly grateful: something positive to celebrate, and possible discounts to help out on this special date.
Best seller products on Valentine’s Day
Every year, the same clichés and basics are repeated.
Although it’s a day for almost everyone and everything, you’ll have a much easier time if your company focuses on a few of these products. The difficulty: with so much competition on this day, you’ll have to strengthen your promotional efforts for Valentine’s Day:
- Sweets and chocolates (over half of buyers opt for these products on Valentine’s Day)
- Flowers (roses are still the most popular, with over 200 million produced each year)
- Greetings cards
- Wine
- Jewelry (sales increase by up to 40% on this date)
- Clothes and shoes
- Gift cards
- Perfume
- Lingerie
- Cosmetics
→ If you sell cosmetics: checklist of essential actions for 2021
Other common gifts for Valentine’s Day will be less popular this year, such as romantic dinners, trips and getaways, and vouchers for events (spas, sporting activities, etc.).
The great thing about Valentine’s Day, just like any other annual celebration, is that you can put in as much or as little creativity as you wish. It’s also a great date for unusual products, if you can personalize these for couples or find a fun or romantic side to them. Why not advertise a brand of hot-water bottles, in the middle of a cold snap? For example, the famous jewelry brand Tiffany & Co offered its unique spin on the celebrations, promoting the color blue instead of the typical red of Valentine’s Day.
Another strategy is to plan a new launch coinciding with this date, just like Dunkin Donut’s heart-shaped donuts. By making these launches temporary, the attraction will increase as customers won’t want to miss out on a product that’s only available for a very short period of time.
Distribution of retail spending during Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day is a day of romantic gestures and objects, although this focus has begun to change and is now centered around demonstrations of affection between more types of relationships and people. This greatly widens the scope of action for buyer profiles and types of products.
The main recipients of Valentine’s Day gifts are:
- Partners
- Family
- Friends
- Teachers or classmates
- Colleagues
- Pets
It’s true: more and more people are offering special gifts to their pets on Valentine’s Day. This is yet more proof that, if you wish, your business can promote its catalog or a selection of its products as part of Valentine’s Day promotions.
→ Don’t stop on 14 February: guide to special sales dates for 2021
7 actions for selling more on Valentine’s Day
Festive design
Many buyers don’t realize which holidays and celebrations are coming up until the last minute. Decorate your website, online store and social networks with motifs that remind customers that Valentine’s Day is coming up, helping them to plan their shopping in advance and inviting them to offer someone a special gift this year.
The downside to this is that some other customers resent this celebration. For this reason, you may wish to opt for a more subtle banner, visible on all pages of your site, to advertise any discounts or special offers you want to promote for this date. As with any marketing strategy, how much importance you give to this holiday will depend on your target buyer.
→ Get started: key web-design tips for e-commerce
Special offers
The most common Valentine’s Day searches are special offers. Giving gifts feels even better if you can get them with a discount.
It never hurts to take advantage of this date by adding a pop up with a discount coupon to your site, applying daily offers, launching one-day-only sales with a counter to make sure visitors don’t miss out, or an extra bonus for abandoned carts over the period.
Because, although gifts come from the heart, the majority will be more convinced to buy if it’ll mean less money coming out of their wallet.
Gift guide
After the Christmas headaches of deciding what to get for your brother-in-law, trying to guess what your partner or loved one will be most excited about can be a formidable task.
Create special content for Valentine’s Day, with gift suggestions for different types of people and relationships. These seasonal catalogs can also be useful for sharing in newsletters and on social networks, as you can transform them into a thread of images with daily suggestions.
The most important thing to ensure in this case is that you have all your product content well organized, in order to easily identify the best products and accessories related to your customers’ interests. A PIM system (Product Information Manager) is the quickest way to manage your entire catalog and even generate instant versions with selections of products.
Digital gift cards
Today, gift cards have become a very useful resource, as many people cannot be there to give gifts in person and are not sure what to buy.
Prepare digital gift cards with special Valentine’s Day phrases for your customers, so they can be shared by email or in paper format, delivering them on a postcard with their voucher.
Personalized and anonymous deliveries
Make your packages all the more surprising by hiding the sender’s address. You can offer a checkbox with this option on the payment page, as well as an add-on for gift wrapping or a personalized message.
Of course, if you decide to offer free delivery on these dates, you’ll manage to convince many more reluctant buyers.
User-generated content
Sometimes, the best way to convince sceptics is to show them examples of other happy customers. The cheapest option is to search for images of your products on social networks, shared by buyers, which can be used to create a Valentine’s Day theme.
Another more elaborate alternative is to host a competition or challenge in which users share photographs of their products, according to a specific theme set by you. In addition to generating valuable content with ease, you’ll be encouraging participation and making the most of trending hashtags.
Contact with loyal customers
Win back customers who have shown interest in previous seasonal purchases, or on a previous Valentine’s Day.
The best option for this group is to apply retargeting through email or ads on Google or Facebook, showing Valentine’s Day messages with your chosen strategy (special offers, exclusive catalog, etc.). Include trending keywords for Valentine's Day or searches for highly sought-after products that match your catalog within these paid campaigns in order to attract more traffic and improve your positioning.
Loved by many and hated by others, what’s certain is that Valentine’s Day is a fantastic occasion for manufacturers and retailers. It’s a sure-fire way to get the commercial season off to a strong start after the January sales, by presenting new products and starting to test consumers and trends.
And the gift we know brands and sellers want most is worth much more than jewelry: a free trial of Sales Layer’s PIM software, allowing you to take control of all your product information, ready and all decked out for the biggest occasions of the year – like your Valentine’s Day sales.
Making your customers fall in love in 2021 starts by offering them the perfect product content.
