Insight: One Hour Translation – 31% of the people who plan to buy a Valentine’s Day gift, intend to buy it online

A survey by One Hour Translation has provided an international perspective for consumer preferences around the world concerning the purchase of Valentine’s Day gifts this year. The survey, which the company held in January 2018, reveals that 31% of those who answered that they intend to buy a Valentine’s Day gift this year intend to do so online.

One Hour Translation conducted the survey in collaboration with Google Consumer Surveys and included 4,020 participants in 11 developed countries: the USA, Canada, Mexico, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Holland, Brazil, Japan and Australia. The answers of some 1000 people in the United States, and the survey analysed another 300 in each of the other 10 countries. One Hour Translation asked them, “Do you intend to buy a Valentine’s Day gift this year?”. In the 11 countries participating in the survey, a global average of some 20% answered that they plan to buy presents in physical stores, and another 9% of those responding (more than 30% of expected shoppers), said they would do so online. Approximately 63% of those responding said they did not intend to buy Valentine’s Day gifts this year. The remaining portion of 8% of those surveyed, belong to the group who chose the option “No gifts this year / none of the options above”. One Hour Translation believes it is probable that most of these people do not recognise Valentine’s Day or are not currently involved in a relationship.

The countries with the leading number of respondents preferring to buy presents in physical stores are Japan (35%), Italy (33%), Holland (30%) and Mexico (29%). Only 19% of respondents from the US and Canada, 13% from France and Spain and 11% in Brazil and Australia and 7% from Germany answered that they intend to purchase a Valentine’s gift from a brick and mortar store.

According to the survey’s results, the country with the largest number of respondents preferring to make an online purchase this Valentine’s Day was Italy (23%). Holland followed with 16%, with the United States and Canada (10% each) trailing close behind. The percentage of respondents from the remaining countries who preferred to make online purchases is 8% in France and Australia, 6% in Germany, 5% in Mexico, Spain and Japan, and 3% in Brazil.

In 8 of the 11 countries surveyed, more than half of the respondents answered that they have no intention of buying gifts this year for Valentine’s Day. This trend appeared most prominently in Brazil (85%), followed by Spain (82%) and Australia (81%), Canada (71%), the USA (70%), Mexico (66%), Japan (60%) and Holland (54%). Germany (45%), Italy (44%) and France (33%) complete the list. It is worth noting that in Germany and France, many of those surveyed (42% and 46% respectively) chose to answer the question, “Do you intend to buy a Valentine’s Day gift this year?” By selecting the option “Other” indicating that the option of buying or not buying a gift this year is irrelevant for them.

Almost two-thirds of those questioned provided information concerning their gender – 53% were male and 47% were female. The survey’s global average showed that 12% of the men answered that they intended to by a Valentine’s Day gift this year over the Internet, 20% of them answered they would buy a gift in physical shops, and 61% said they did not intend to buy a gift this year. Approximately 7% said that none of these options were relevant for them. As for women around the world, the survey showed that 8% intended to buy a Valentine’s Day gift this year online, 21% answered they would choose a physical store and another 65% said they did not intend to buy a gift this year. Approximately 6% of the women said that none of these options were relevant.

More than 3,200 of the 4,020 people surveyed, noted their age group. Across the different age groups, there is very little variation in the proportion of people intending to buy a present in a physical store. The age group with the lowest percentage of respondents who answered this way was 18-24 years (19%). The highest percentage of respondents in this category came from the age group 45-54 (22%).

One Hour Translation also analysed the differences of intent to purchase gifts online between the age groups and found a slightly higher level of variance. The lowest rate of respondents (8.9%) who intend to purchase gifts online was among 18-24 year-olds, while the highest rate (12%) was among 35-44 year-olds. The survey found A low level of variance between age groups was also found among those who do not plan to purchase any Valentine’s Day gifts this year. The lowest rate of respondents who do not intend to purchase any gift was found among 25-34 year-olds (60%), and the highest rate was in the 65+ age group (66%).

“The survey measuring the intention of consumers who plan to purchase Valentine’s Day gifts is our first survey for this holiday, but it is one in a series of surveys concerning online purchases that we have been carrying out for the last few years”, said Yaron Kaufman, CMO of One Hour Translation. “Similar to the other surveys, the new Valentine’s Day survey points to a large number of consumers, 31%, who prefer to buy online. The conclusion is clear – since Valentine’s Day is the most significant shopping day after the November-December holidays and so many people are open to online shopping, we recommend that e-commerce companies expand their digital marketing activity around Valentine’s Day and utilize the geographical, gender and age-group segments that we have presented in this survey.”