‘I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love” … except on St Valentine’s Day of course. Valentine’s Day has never been especially important in my household but it’s always been a good excuse for my son to gorge himself on chocolate.
It will be a washout this year as well since my husband’s been working in Yugoslavia for nearly 10 months, missing birthdays, anniversaries and other sundry celebrations. So, the only Valentine – but certainly the most important – will be from my five-year-old and his trusty box of crayons.
But for the millions of love-struck out there the torrid search is on for the perfect gift for that special someone and the Internet is once again counting on making it happen.
Valentine’s Day was originally a Roman Festival known as the feast of Lupercalia, in honour of Juno, goddess of women and marriage. Christian priests converted the feast into a celebration of the martyrdom in 270AD of St Valentine, who sent a note to a lady signed “from your Valentine” just before he was executed. However, it was the Victorians who turned St Valentine’s Day into a commercial affair when the first mass-produced cards were introduced.
For retailers and now e-tailers today, February 14 is likely to be the second most important shopping holiday after Christmas. Lovers will reap the rewards of Cupid’s arrow but those doing business on the Net will also count on Cupid finding their hearts. E-tailers are counting on romance and expecting those in love to splurge millions of pounds, dollars, lire, rand and whatever else they can scrounge on flowers, cards and romance online.
In Britain alone, the British Flowers and Plants Association predicts that 22-million (R220-million) will be spent on flowers on February 14 – most of it on roses imported from Israel, Colombia, Kenya and Holland. Interflora, Britain’s biggest network of florists, is estimating that seven million red roses will be given on Valentine’s Day – which is 400% higher than a normal day. In the United States, 32% of all floral business is done around February 14 and worldwide, according to the International Mass Retailers Association, consumers will send around 900-million cards.
E-commerce sites and those where their advertisements reside are heavily promoting Valentine’s Day gifts from flowers and champagne – the most popular – to lingerie, teddy bears and gourmet food baskets. The number of Internet orders for flowers in the run up to the holiday is rising rapidly, especially among women who find it less embarrassing to type their own intimate messages than dictate them to a florist over the phone.
This year, as the Internet slowly takes over much of our day-to-day lives, the card industry and newspaper classified sections will certainly feel the pinch. Where once they bulged with passionate outpourings they now face new competition from cyber greetings. Bluemountain.com offers electronic greeting cards to suit every occasion, including Love Your Pet Day. The greetings are free but Bluemountain does get access to the e-mail address of both the sender and the recipient for future marketing efforts.
Cyber greetings are becoming an increasingly popular way for people to keep in touch across continents. In December alone as many as 9% of all global home Internet users visited the Bluemountain.com site to send online Christmas cards.
However, unlike the Christmas shopping season – which usually starts a good month before the holiday – most shopping for Valentine’s Day is impulse buying and done at the last minute, usually by men who tend to procrastinate. Unfortunately if this kind of “down to the wire” shopping is done on the Net it won’t come cheap.
To make sure that gifts get to their destination on time overnight shipping costs can become prohibitive depending on where the gift is going. On the other hand, women tend to make their purchases at least a week ahead of time, giving them plenty of time to take advantage of the convenience and ease of the Web.
If all else fails, there’s always the made-at-home gift. According to greeting card giant Hallmark, a microbio-logy student in Rugby, central England, gave his wife a card made from 500E000-million bacteria he had grown to form the words “I Love You”, creating an unusual greeting. I hope my son sticks to his box of crayons.
l Some sites for gifts or cards: www.victoriassecret.com; www.iGive. com; www.redenvelope.com; www. netflorist.co.za; www.streetcar.com; www. 24.com