A floral industry market research group is predicting a strong Mother’s Day this year — and they’re warning against under-selling to a demographic that’s ready to spend significantly on the holiday.
According to Prince & Prince’s Mother’s Day 2018 Floral Market Projection report, total U.S. market value of all consumer floral retail purchasing could reach about $4.4 billion this year, a $200 million increase over the company’s 2017 pre-holiday estimate.
“Mother’s Day is the largest of floral holidays for the U.S. floral industry, in terms of consumer dollar spending on floral products,” said Tom Prince, Ph.D., of Prince & Prince in Columbus, Ohio. “More floral-buying households in the U.S. purchase floral products for Mother’s Day than any other holiday, event, or occasion of floral purchase throughout the year.”
The firm also projects that this year holiday spending per floral-purchasing household will reach more than $78 on average (including delivery and fees), which is on par with recent years’ estimates.
Prince said their data shows that consumers who spend the most annually on flowers and plants (between $251 and $500 or more than $500 per household) have a “a significantly greater likelihood of purchase for Mother’s Day than all other floral-spending groups.” Those that spend $251 to $500 annually have a 74-percent “purchase incidence” for Mother’s Day, meaning the purchase of one or more floral product by the household for Mother’s Day; those who spend more than $500 a year have a 70-percent purchase incidence.
“These ‘big spenders’ collectively represent about one-fifth of all consumer floral buyers,” Prince said. “No other holiday, event, or occasion, of the 24 measured in survey, matches or exceeds the 74 percent and 70 percent purchase incidence of these big spending groups for Mother’s Day. This market finding suggests that given the consumer demographics of a particular market, the product offerings of floral retailers for Mother’s Day should likely be skewed toward offerings that meet the expectations of these big floral spenders.”
With the “channel shifts in consumer floral buying, the mass-marketers may be currently thwarting a rise in overall household floral spending for Mother’s Day, especially the ‘super-discounters,'” Prince added. “That’s one reason why we wrote the . Our view is that mass-marketers may be under-selling given the composition of the Mother’s Day floral market.”
Last year, according to a post-holiday survey conducted by the Society of American Florists, about 60 percent of member florists saw increased sales on Mother’s Day. Roughly 20 percent said sales were about the same as 2016. Around 16 percent saw a drop. Average purchase amount per transaction last year was almost $66.
SAF will be surveying members soon to find out how the industry fared on International Women’s Day, Easter and Passover. Look for coverage on those stories — and additional projections on Mother’s Day in future issues of E-Brief.
Not receiving SAF member surveys? Email ssantiago@safnow.org.
