Rising prices, along with more consumers buying online was expected to help push total North American sales (offline and online) for all goods and services for Valentine's Day 2001 to $2 billion this year, a 25 percent increase over last year's revenue, according to Gartner Group, Inc.. In 2000, Valentine's sales totaled $1.5 billion, said the group's website (www.gartner.com)
According to the research published on the eve of love day, Gartner attributed the increase this year to higher prices of Valentine's gift in the market. A larger and more mature online market is another reason, the research said.
"Across the board - from flower vendors to premium food vendors - prices have risen over the last 12 months," said the report.
Gartner estimates that the online market has increased by over 16 million users in North America from 2000 to 2001. More mature Internet users also purchase in greater amounts than first-year users. Valentine's retailers have also added gourmet foods, spirits and gifts to the traditional revenue producing goods such as chocolate and flowers.
Gartner introduces itself as a leading information provider that helps more than 10,000 organizations achieve their business objectives through the intelligent and efficient use of technology. Additionally, Gartner helps technology companies identify and maximize technology market opportunities.
According to ecommercetimes.com, Americans not only logged on to the Net to find gifts, they also logged on to look for love. According to Jupiter's research, visits to online dating sites, such as Match.com, Oneandonly.com and Matchmaker.com, increased 46.9 percent over last year, growing from 3.9 million unique visitors in January 2000 to 5.8 million in January 2001.
Notably, while men account for 58.3 percent of visitors to personals sites, women outnumber men substantially at romance-related sites as Lovingyou.com and TheKnot.com, where they comprise 55.6 and 63.1 percent of the audience, respectively.
The e-commerce news service said that although some people cringe at the commercialization of love during the Valentine's Day season, in the dog-eat-dog world of e-commerce, only those companies that can leverage the traffic and turn the visitor numbers into a profitable revenue stream will survive.
For online dating sites, nothing could be more important than building additional revenue streams.
"Sites must turn this traffic into customer relationship-building opportunities and maximize revenue possibilities through advertising and product sales," an expert was quoted by ecommercetimes as saying – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
