Jewelry makes promising progress in Valentine's 2018 spending plans

By

Robin Driver

Published
Feb 2, 2018

With the holiday season already looking like a distant memory, the National Retail Federation (NRF) has released its annual report on consumer purchasing plans for Valentine’s Day in association with Prosper Insights & Analytics, revealing an upturn in intended spending on jewelry and the continued popularity of gifts of experience. 

19% of those surveyed stated that they were intending to buy jewelry for a loved one for Valentine’s Day this year, with total planned purchases amounting to $4.7 billion. The spending prediction beat last year’s $4.3 billion, approaching 2015’s forecast of $4.8 billion, an all-time high since the survey began in 2004.
 
The overall predicted spend across all categories for 2018 came to a total of $19.6 billion, second only in the survey’s history to 2016’s total of $19.7 billion. The average spend per consumer is estimated at $143.56, while consumers aged 25-34 are expected to be the biggest spenders with an average spend of $202.76.

The high spend on jewelry might be somewhat unexpected in a survey whose biggest average contributors are millennials, a market that has been notoriously hard to crack for the jewelry industry.
 
However, in December of last year, Stuart Robinson, research director for Gemworld International, pointed out that “2017 saw some interesting trends in the U.S. gem trade that one can expect to carry into 2018, not the least of which are the large gains made by small studio artisans and designers in connecting with millennials—a consumer class that traditional retail jewelers have been largely unable to tap.”
 
With this in mind, jewelry’s promising forecast for Valentine’s Day might well set the industry up for a strong 2018 as millennials continue to come around to the category, albeit through alternative channels.
 
The NRF’s survey also showed that gifts of experience, such as tickets for a concert or a sports event, have been very slowly growing in popularity over the last few years, with 42% of those surveyed saying that they would like to receive one, compared to 41% in 2017, 40% in 2016 and 39% in 2015.
 
This would appear to confirm the increasing importance of the experience economy in the financial landscape. However, the number of respondents planning to actually give gifts of experience has remained stable at 25% since 2015 – a respectable, though decidedly static, figure.
 
The survey, published on January 31, asked 7,277 US consumers about their Valentine’s Day spending plans from January 3 to 10, 2018, and has a margin of error of 1.1 percentage points.