It is the time of year again—when the couples are over-professing their love for another. Approximately 150 million Valentine’s Day cards are exchanged annually, making Valentine’s Day the second most popular card-sending holiday after Christmas.
The craze of Valentine’s day has grown tremendously in the past few years in India. The excitement and the preparation for this day no more restricted to tier-1 cities, but has spread it’s roots in tier-2 and tier-3 cities as well. With the global day of love just round the corner- Feb 14- the people in the gifting industry are all bucked-up to utilize the peak time of their sales.
According to a survey conducted by ASSOCHAM (The Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry of India) in 2015, the Valentine’s day shopping market was estimated to Rs.22,000 crore. It has only grown since then.
Flowers and chocolates have been all-time favorites for Valentine’s day shopping, but the largest growth  can be seen in the demand of customized gifts and naughty gifts categories. The excitement of Valentine’s  day is extremely high amongst the females, with every one in seven women saying that they would even break their relationship if they do not receive a Valentine’s gift, as per the survey.
In 2017, with ever-changing Valentine’s day shopping trends, an online survey by CashKaro.com on more than 1,000 people, revealed that 91% of the respondents preferred to shop online than offline for gifts. Reasons mostly being innumerable gifts options to choose from, from the comforts of your home along with getting the gifts home-delivered, online shopping for gifts has become a major hit. It is a real time saver. The respondents including of 56% men and 53% women mentioned that they are willing to spend anywhere between Rs. 1000 – Rs. 5000. Only 7% men and 8% women are willing to shell over Rs. 10,000 mark.
Giftease.com, an Indian gifting portal also conducted the online survey to identify the buying patterns of the people around Valentine’s day. It was done by collecting information of 3000 respondents which revealed that most men prefer to be on the safer side by gifting flowers (42 per cent) or chocolates (27 per cent) but a significant 17% choose to gift something out-of-the-box like an adventurous trip or naughty gift items. There is a huge difference between the gift choice of men and women for their Valentines. Gadgets , perfumes and accessories are the top three items on the women’s list. Among the total women respondents, 34% of women chose gadgets, 19% went with perfumes and 16% opted for  accessories for their Valentines.
Valentine’s day celebrations should not be mistaken for just boyfriend-girlfriend thing, married couples are far better prepared for this day when compared to unmarried couples. 41 % of married men pre-plan for Valentine’s Day as compared to 31 per cent unmarried men, as per the survey. This is the time of the year the brands look forward to, as it comes with the largest peaks for the brands in terms of traffic and sales. The brands are trying their best to get customers to their brands through various discount offers and extensive promotion on social media platforms.
The day of romance we call Valentine’s Day is named after a Christian martyr, St. Valentine and dates back to the 5th century, but has origins in the Roman holiday Lupercalia.
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