Valentine’s spend in florists peaked between 4pm and 5pm on the 14th February last year, according to the 2024 AIB Spend Trend.
It found the peak happened as people made a last minute dash on the way home from work, with men accounting for 85% of the spend.
The average transaction on flowers in the week before Valentine’s Day 2024 was highest in Kildare at €70 while it was lowest in Louth on €48.
The day before Valentine’s day was the second busiest day of the year for buying flowers last year
But Mother’s Day scoops Valentines day when it comes to spend on flowers.
Mother’s Day still rules in regards to buying flowers, according to economist Austin Hughes.
However, he thinks the view that opposites attract is in seen in the way that men and women look at the economy.
“The January Credit union consumer Sentiment survey found, in keeping with international Studies, that Irish men and women look at their economic and financial circumstances quite differently,” said Mr Hughes
“Men tend to be more optimistic, or perhaps more overconfident than women. That said, in the last year, women are a little less nervous about their economic and financial circumstances, probably because of the easing in the cost of living crisis, whereas men are a little more negative and that’s been put down to the global financial crisis,” he said.
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“So different priorities for men and women in terms of how they look at the economy. And as I say, maintain towards a little more optimism, but I don’t know whether that’s the case in romance,” he added.
The Spend Trend also found the average flower spend per transaction in store was €47, whereas this figure increased to €71 online.
Anyone who may have forgotten to mark the occasion may have felt the need to make up for it, with the average spend per transaction on flowers in the days after Valentine’s Day, increasing to €89 online.
The data was compiled from 71.5 million card transactions carried out by AIB customers in store and online during February 2024 and has been anonymised and aggregated.
Data provided by AIB features one of the most comprehensive and accurate data sets on consumer spending in Ireland.
Speaking about the data, Adrian Moynihan, Head of Consumer at AIB said; “It’s really interesting to see how consumer spending patterns change around Valentine’s Day, with notable increases across a number of sectors and categories.
“AIB’s robust, comprehensive data enables a better understanding of consumer spend trends and also can help businesses plan accordingly, for example by having more staff available for that evening rush,” he said.
“We expect that spending will increase on Valentine’s Day this year across a number of sectors, with retail and hospitality set to benefit the most,” he added.
