For those who try to put a price on love—and, of course, some marketer always does—we’ve got some heartbreaking news: Consumer spending on Valentine’s Day is drooping like a week-old carnation. From a high of more than $17 billion in 2008, Romeos suffered some serious cold feet in 2009, spending only $14.7 billion, and are expected to spend still less this year—about $14.1 billion, according to the National Retail Federation. If you’re curious, that translates to about $103 per person. And where’s most of that money end up? You guessed it: Chocolates and flowers. NRF’s research also shows that posies and candy account for nearly 83 percent of the merch bought for Cupid’s day. So, we decided to play Don Juan and see what kind of stuff $103 will buy our dearest ones this year.
Flowers
Of the 66 Valentine’s Day assortments at 1-800-Flowers, your $103 will let you pick from 59 of them—an impressive 89 percent of the cooler. Of course, you’ll be sleeping on the couch if you try to pass off some of the cheap stuff. Six of the bouquets involve teddy bears, and two feature mylar balloons instead of flowers. You know what’s at stake, dog, so you’d better go for the Elegant Wishes bouquet. It comes with roses, gerbera daisies, lisianthus and lilies, all in a Lenox crystal vase (something you can keep to help you remember the $99.99 you dropped on flowers that lived for four days). Oh, and the top-shelf bunch of posies in this place is called the Ultimate Elegance Premium. It contains four dozen long stems, and it’ll cost you $289.99.
Chocolates
Some chocolate instead? At high-end chocolatiers Godiva—founded in Belgium in 1926—$103 will actually put several goodies into your eco-friendly, reusable shopping bag. Grab six chocolate cupcakes ($28), three chocolate-chunk brownies ($22) and a 36-piece candy sampler called the Valentine’s Day Ballotin ($45), and you’ve still got eight bucks left over! Of course, blowing the budget isn’t hard at Godiva, either. Take, for example, the seven-pound Chocolate Premiere Signature Gift Tower, which includes 140 pieces of truffles along with light- and dark-chocolate nibbles. That’ll be $325, my dearest.
Booze
For years now, the liquor folks have looked on jealously as all that money gets spent on flowers for Valentine’s day. But how are you supposed to make vodka as romantic as flowers? Well, you could always just stick flowers in the vodka. Just in time for Feb. 14, the Distilled Spirits Council is touting recipes for floral cocktails. These include Kuawa Martini (with elderflower liqueur) and Coming Up Roses, a drink made with rose water, rose syrup and even rose petals, created by New York mixologist Junior Merino. “Flowers and Valentine’s Day have always gone hand in hand,” Merino tells BrandFreak. “It was just a matter of time for the front of the house to see the potential.” Indeed, flowers and liquor go back to the days when wormwood blossoms were used to make absinthe. Today, however, Merino suggests using only organic flowers, whatever the drink. Pesticides can leave such an aftertaste.
Luxury goods
Houston-based CPA Jim Trippon has carved out a practice catering to self-made millionaires (nice work if you can get it). So, it’s with some authority that he releases his annual Ultimate Valentine’s Day Gift List—which, given that the cheapest item this year is a $2,650 14-carat-gold ID tag for your dog, is obviously aimed at paupers like Warren Buffet and Lloyd Blankfein. Among Trippon’s 2010 suggestions for a little something for your honey: an island off the coast of Rio ($5.8 million); a Stuart Hughes solid-gold iPhone ($37,915); an estate in Palm Springs ($16.7 million); and a Tiffany Legacy Ring—a cute little number in platinum with a 6.34-carat chuck of ice in the middle ($710,000). Thank heaven there’s help with life’s tough choices.
Other
In fairness, we should point out that lots of people also buy cards, clothing and more reasonably priced jewelry. Still, if it’s finally time to slip across that little box with the diamond and platinum ring inside, you’ve just left the $103 category, loverboy.
—Posted by Robert Klara