Give Customers a Reason to Shop Your Store This Valentine’s Day!

Valentine’s Day is less than a month away, and studies show most Valentine shoppers wait until the last minute to buy. Last year, the average consumer spent about $131 on Valentine gifts during this $18 Billion holiday.

It’s no surprise that men spend twice as much on this occasion – so impulse items and gifts-to-go are important for them. Having pretty boxes for your chocolates like our international customer Frutia in Slovakia (pictured above) or offering free gift wrapping will only increase your bottom line. Cards, candy, flowers and jewelry are still the most popular gifts. Interestingly, 20% of consumers will also give their pets a Valentine gift, so don’t forget about pet packaging.

Independent retailers need Valentine’s Day sales to help during the unpredictable winter months. So how do you promote your store and take back some market share from the discount chains? Here are a few tips:

1. Promote Gift Registries

Offer your customers a personal gift registry that you can email to their significant other. Another option is to use MyRegistry.com – a free universal gift registry. Customers can upload items from your website to create their own “Wish List”.  As a merchant, you can also download their Universal Gift Registry widget for a small monthly fee to add your website, making it even easier for customers to find. This will take the guess work out of shopping and ensure your customers receive gifts they love.

2. Use Social Media Marketing

Use Facebook and other social media to promote your Valentine specials. Show great pictures of your Valentine products. Consider holding a contest for the best customer photo with the person or pet they love. Ask them to share it on Facebook or Instagram with you. You’re welcome to click and save our image at the left and share with your customers on Facebook to build your followers.

3. Create Bold Store Displays

Create a beautiful store display with all things Valentine or all things red and pink. Grouping this merchandise together will help make shopping much easier. Offer great smells and romantic music like Michael Buble’s “It’s Time” or Harry Connick Jr.’s “Only You” to set the tone.

Don’t forget to do a fun Valentine window display to draw new shoppers inside. Try making a giant gift tower with Valentine gift wrap, adding tissue paper flowers or hanging tulle poms with your merchandise. See more great ideas on our Valentine Pinterest board.

4. Make a “Tree of Love”

Along with having some Valentine point-of-purchase gifts, offer customers to pick from the “Love Tree” (or whatever you want to call it) for an additional discount of 5% – 20% off. We created the tree by spray painting a small tree branch white. Then we made hearts from our Valentine gift wrap and jute twine. You can write the discount on the back of the hearts and fill a clear vase with shred to hold your branch. 

5. Offer Cute Packaging

Nashville Wraps has a great collection of candy and gourmet packaging, Valentine gift basket boxes, shopping bags, gift wrap, organza bags and ribbon. See our entire line of Valentine packaging here.

Finally, I just wanted to share a sweet favor idea here for family and friends. Inspired by the book “Silver Boxes: The Gift of Encouragement” by Florence Littauer, this favor is a reminder that “Our words should be gifts to each other, like little silver boxes with bows on top.”

Wishing you lots of love this Valentine season! Please share your favorite Valentine ideas below.