Valentine's Day Trends

This is a re-posting from Alexandra Churchill, a staff writer for The New Hampshire, an independent student newspaper at the University of New Hampshire. Alexandra shares the following Valentine's Day statistics:

Here are the statistics for trends on this day of mad love and mad business.
Cards
*180 million cards are exchanged annually, making Valentine's Day the second most popular card giving holiday of the year.
*50 percent of all cards are purchased in the week prior to the holiday, while most are sold within the 48 hours prior.
*Teachers will receive the most cards, followed by children, mothers, wives and then sweethearts.
*3 percent of people will give cards to their pets.
*1,330 different cards are specifically designed for Valentine's Day by Hallmark.

Candy
*8 billion conversation hearts will be produced this year. That's enough candy to stretch from Rome, Italy to Valentine, Arizona 20 times and back again.
*On average, men shell out $130 each on candy, cards, jewelry, flowers and dates. That's more than double what women commit to spending.
*36  million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate will be sold for Valentine's Day.
*$14.4 billion:  Total value of shipments in 2007 for firms producing chocolate and cocoa products. Non-chocolate confectionery product manufacturing, meanwhile, was a $5.6 billion industry. *23.8 pounds was the per capita consumption of candy by Americans in 2008.

Flowers
*$403 million is the combined wholesale value of domestically produced cut flowers in 2008 for all flower-producing operations with $100,000 or more in sales.
*19,759 is the number of florists nationwide in 2007. In 2007 these businesses employed 93,779 people.
Jewelry
*27,484 jewelry stores in the United States in 2007. Jewelry stores offer engagement, wedding and other rings to lovers of all ages. In February 2009, these stores sold $2.2 billion in merchandise.

Be My Valentine
*904 dating services were established nationwide as of 2002. These establishments, which include Internet dating services, employed nearly 4,300 people and pulled in $489 million in revenue.
*15 % of women send themselves flowers on Valentine's Day.
*64 % of men do not make plans with their sweethearts, but beware; 53 % of women in America would dump their boyfriend if they did not get them anything for Valentine's Day.
*70 % of celebrators give a card followed by a phone call (49 %), special dinner (37 %), candy (33 %), restaurant meal (30 %), and flowers (19 %).

Happy Valentine's Day!

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