Mother's Day 2007: Dissecting the Numbers
A nationwide poll conducted by SAF about Mother's Day 2007 points, at least tentatively, to increased holiday spending.
The online poll found that more than 37 percent of Americans purchased flowers or plants for Mother's Day 2007. That number could represent a 3-percent increase from five years ago; however the 2002 data were collected using phone surveys, making the results not exactly comparable. Survey highlights include:
• The average amount spent on flowers and gifts for Mother's Day was $41.90. Perhaps, not suprisingly, married people spent more than unmarried people, as did people with college or advanced degrees compared to consumers with a high school degree or less.
• People 65 and older were less likely to buy flowers and plants for Mother's Day than 18- to 64-year-olds.
• Higher rates of purchase also were found in households with annual incomes of more than $50,000.
• Married people and households with children had higher rates of purchase than their counterparts.
• Males were "directionally more prone" than females to buy flowers or plants as gifts for Mother's Day, meaning the difference was minor.
Retail Outlet
Poll results also shed light on where consumers shopped for Mother's Day flowers and plants, finding that 32.5 percent of holiday floral gifts came from supermarkets or grocery stores. Other popular venues included:
• Garden centers, greenhouses or nurseries (23.7 percent)
• Mass merchandisers, discount chains or wholesale membership clubs (22.8 percent)
• Retail florists (20.2 percent)
• Toll-free or online floral services (12.9 percent)
• Home improvement centers (7.2 percent)
• Street vendors (3.7 percent)
• Other outlets (2 percent)
• Convenience or gas/quick marts stores (0.3 percent)
Poll results also show supermarkets and grocery stores are favorite outlets of buyers in their mid-40s to mid-60s, while twenty- and thirty-somethings tend to choose mass merchandisers. (Retail florists, and their Web sites, seem to cater most often to that same 25- to 34-year-old group.) At the same time, people in the $50,000 or higher income group were more likely than the less affluent groups to shop through toll-free or online floral services. Other findings include:
• Northeasterners favored garden centers, greenhouses and nurseries significantly more than those from other regions of the country.
• High school graduates, or those with less education, preferred supermarkets and grocery stores.
• Retired shoppers patronized garden centers, greenhouses and nurseries more than working people.
• Full-time working people shopped more often at retail florists than those who didn't work full-time.
Find out more about the poll, including how it was conducted and additional results, at www.safnow.org.
--Ira Silvergleit
isilvergleit@safnow.org
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