Valentine’s Day can often be a tricky one for gift retailers, with champagne, roses and dinner a deux traditionally the order of the day.
However, with millennials upping the ante over the past few years, Valentine’s Day is expanding, with extra occasions such as Galantine’s Day (females celebrating with female friends) and Palantine’s Day (men and women celebrating with a close friend) increasing the scope for gifting. So how did independent gift retailers fare last week?
“The romantics were definitely out and about in Hartley Wintney!” confirmed Julianne Moore, owner of MiMi in Hartley Wintney. “Crumble and Core card earrings were extremely popular, and our heart scarves from Pure Fashions sold out three days beforehand.” Continued Julianne: “Shruti heart hurricane lamps entered our top ten, with several husbands purchasing these alongside a card instead of flowers. Plus, our Valentine’s Day card sales doubled from last year with the help of new cards from Ling Designs, Janie Wilson and Five Dollar Shake. All in all we saw a significant 20% increase in relation to last year.”
Also ringing up sales was Fiona Fabien, owner of Papyrus in Glasgow. “Trading for the week up to Valentine’s Day was surprisingly good and well up on last year, with the winter sunshine and mild weather – exceptional for Glasgow – undoubtedly the main reason. Among the best selling gifts were candles and glasses. We are very close to Waitrose and M&S, and both did really great Valentine meal deals, so, on the back of that, we were selling lots of glasses including sorbet champagne flutes from LSA International and Mikasa Cheers oversized goblets.”
Continued Fiona: “Woodwick red candles and Valentine’s candles from Lilyflame and Dekassa were also best sellers, with Dekassa’s new range with local Glasgow dialect a particular favourite – ‘yer some wummin’ and ‘still got it hen’ – selling out a couple of days after delivery. As usual, traditional Valentine’s gifts of jewellery and ceramic hearts with sentiments were also very popular.”
Over in Northampton, Rachel and Paul Roberts, owners of MOOCH on St Giles Street and Bell, were delighted with the success of this year’s gift giving occasion. “We had a big uplift for Valentine’s this year in both gifts and cards, with the occasion much bigger than last year,” confirmed Rachel. “Cards were obviously massive, but we noticed a big increase on gift purchasing too. Jewellery was, predictably, really brilliant, as well as books and art prints. However, the big spike came in the last week, where we were still selling Valentine’s gifts on February 16th to forgetful partners! We gift wrap everything in tissue for customers, and this Valentine’s we also saw an increase in customers choosing to buy premium giftwrap where, of course, we did the wrapping free of charge.”
At Calladoodles in Carshalton in Surrey, Valentine’s was another positive event. “Overall, it was a successful Valentine’s for us with sales up on last year,” confirmed owner Liz Killick. “Compared to last year it was a slower start, with last minute sales, particularly in the last three days, making the difference. However, Valentine’s Day itself saw sales significantly up on the previous year, with at least one desperate gentleman banging on the door after closing time!”
In terms of gift sales, Liz confirmed that the top sellers were scarves from Miss Shorthair and Isles & Stars, and candles from Country Candle and Parkminster, often teamed with jewellery from Ask and Orelia. “But our real stars were Crumble & Core’s earring gift cards – a lovely combination of watercolour style card and sterling silver earrings in a gift box. As top-up items, the small and affordable East of India’s worded ceramic hearts sold very well, with wrap and gift bags from Think of Me and Unique providing the finishing touches.”
Top: Loving Valentine’s Day. Gift retailers hail it as a big success.
