Romance Survives Credit Crunch

Web traffic to popular florist site triples on Valentine’s Day

ScanSafe’s 24/7 scanners showed that there was a 300% increase in Web traffic to popular florist site, Interflora, on Valentine’s Day this year compared to 2008.  Furthermore, traffic to dating and relationship sites on Valentine’s Day increased by 213%.

“We typically see a sharp increase in traffic to popular florist websites over Valentine’s Day, however the enormity of this increase was not expected,” comments Spencer Parker, director of product strategy at ScanSafe.   “In the current economy, we thought that people would be more worried about making rent than spending money on dating and flowers.”

According to the National Retail Federation, Valentine’s Day spending was expected to fall 14%, to 14.7 billion, compared with last year.  However, some florists have said that the holiday falling on a weekend helped sales this year. Instead of one day, some people sent flowers on Friday and others on Saturday.

While traffic to floral sites increased, traffic to more expensive Valentine’s Day shopping sites, like lingerie retailers, decreased.

“During these challenging times, it is likely that people are falling upon romantic gestures, such as flowers and cards, rather than extravagant gifts,” said Parker. “We noted that traffic to popular lingerie sites decreased by 40% this year.”