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Valentine’s Day is here, and though it may invoke a lot of mixed opinions, there’s no denying the influence it has on multiple sectors. We wanted to find out key consumer opinions and behaviour around the day this year, and so we ran some research with the nationally representative Vypr Community of 60,000+ consumers. *

1 – Consumer Sentiment

How many people are celebrating Valentine’s Day?

• 62% of our sample will be celebrating this year

We filtered the results to find any differences between demographics – one interesting observation was the drop off between those under 45 years of age and those 45 and over:

• 78% of those under 45 voted they will be celebrating, compared to only 48% of those 45 and over

How are people feeling about the day?

We ran a sentiment analysis with our representative UK sample to find out.

• Around half responded positively, but there were also a significant number of negative responses, where many thought the day was too commercialised

These sentiments changed minimally across age and gender groups.

2 – Consumer Shopping Behaviour

Gifts are a huge part of the day for many.

A week before the day, we ran a research question (Steer) to find out how many people had completed their Valentine’s Day gift shopping.

We discovered that 23% of people do not buy gifts for Valentine’s Day, but of the others:

• 11% had completed their gift shopping
• 23% planned to purchase gifts in the work week
• 24% planned to purchase them on the weekend

And we hope the 10% that voted they purchase their gifts on the day managed to complete their shopping in time!

What’s the most popular method of gift purchase?

We found out that the majority of our sample were purchasing gifts in-store, a trend quite different from other holidays such as Christmas, where the majority of UK consumers purchase gifts online.

• Of the sample that purchase gifts, 50% voted in favour of shopping in-store
• A much smaller 29% voted in favour of shopping in-store

We also asked the community what the best type of gift to give on Valentine’s Day is:

• Presents (such as chocolates, flowers, and jewellery) came out on top, but experiences (such as evenings out) were just as popular

An interesting observation was that the majority of females voted for experiences, compared to the majority of males who voted for presents.

Finally, we wanted to find out what the nation’s favourite Valentine’s Day gifts were. Watch the Vypr Valentine’s Video below to find out!

 

 

*Steers (what we call the research questions run on our platform) were run during Jan-Feb 2022, with Vypr’s robust consumer community. Learn more about our data here.