Love Is All Around is a nice song and always will be. Originally it was recorded by The Troggs but Wet Wet Wet is the band which made it famous. Radio stations will play it all day long during St. Valentine`s day. Hey, wait! Would they?
Data analytics comes to help with some interesting data picks regarding the day when all of us are celebrating the love. Everyhit.com, the UK Top 40 Hits Database shows that the “Unchained Melody” by Robson Green & Jerome Flynn is the best-selling love song of all the time with 1.84 m copies. Wet Wet Wet are third on this interesting chart with slighter than 100 000 copies less. The truth is that “Unchained Melody” has three entries in this very chart, all of them played by different musicians. The song is originally written and recorded in 1955 as pure instrumental for the 1955 film “Unchained”, where are the origins of its name. It was also played by Righteous Brothers and Gareth Gates. The total sales of this particular track are way above 4 m copies. Historical sales data clearly shows that “Unchained Melody” is the most loved love song. Period.
Well, we might be in love with love songs but St. Valentine`s Day is definitely changing customers behavior. How and which kind of data we have access to for proving such statement?
MasterCard is sharing annually their insights on St. Valentine`s Day by tracking customers` purchasing habits between February 11th to 14th. Key data findings show that people are spending with 22% more compared to the same period of 2013. Another one is that the spending is moving from actual gifts to experiences and creation of memories.
What a retailer, restaurant manager, and e-commerce managers should know regarding spending habits prior and on Valentine`s Day?
- Europeans made the most of the online buying with 21% of transactions made online.
- Globally, 90% of shoppers made purchases in-person. Just 6% of transactions were online.
- Increasing number of people are going out with their loved ones in restaurants (33%) and hotels (21%).
- Shoppers in Latin America (54%) and USA (38%) are shopping locally while their counterparts in Asia-Pacific, Europe, and Middle East prefer to prioritize hotel stays.
- There is a slight decline in flowers & Valentine`s cards purchases during past three years. The trend is opposite in Latin America where the spending on flowers is almost doubled for the same period. The Middle East is the only region where Valentine`s purchase of cards is growing with the whooping 107%.
- If you are shopping for St. Valentine`s Day at the very last moment, you are not alone! The data provided by MasterCard also shows that people are spending a lot in the very last moment with 47 m transactions on February 13th for the past three years.
What data can tell us more in terms of love? Facebook Data Science has pretty interesting love takes even though they are a little bit outdated (2013). If you are a single man looking for love, do not hesitate to move to Memphis, Jacksonville, and Fort Worth. This is where the ratio of single females per single females is in your favor. Just the opposite is valid for San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle.
Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York are the top population centers in the USA where the percentage of single people by choice is highest. Colorado Springs, El Paso, and Louisville are the cities with the highest probability to find love or to form a relationship.
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