According to the survey by NRF, the average person celebrating Valentine’s Day will spend  USD 142.31 on candy, flowers, apparel and more, up from USD 133.91 last year. Total spending is expected to reach USD 18.9 billion.

Discount  and department stores 35.2 percent 36.5 percent, respectively, will be among the most visited locations for those looking for the perfect Valentine’s Day gift, as will specialty stores 19.4 percent and florists 18.7 percent. One-quarter 25.1 percent say they will shop online and 13.3 percent will shop at a local or small business to find something unique for their loved one.

53.2 percent plan to buy candy for the sweet holiday, spending a total of USD 1.7 billion,

One in five – 21.1 percent are planning to buy jewelry

37.8 percent will buy flowers, spending a total of USD 2.1 billion

More than one-third  35.1 percent will spend on plans for a special night out, including movies and restaurants, totaling $3.6 billion.

Celebrants will also spend nearly $2 billion on clothing and $1.5 billion on the gift that keeps on giving: gift cards.*

Gap, an International Clothing retailer has followed a series of posts and videos to engage consumers in time for  the spring season with advertising themed around a “weirdest love story”.

Engaging audiences with a Spring themed video and paid loops on Instagram, it has launched a series of videos posted on YouTube, facebook and Instagram. Instagram post has generated over 7000 likes.

The Gap series, billed as the “weirdest love story ever Instagrammed,” is timed to the lead-up to its spring clothing line and will have a new installment every week. The Gap will share the videos on platforms like YouTube, too, and it will pay to sponsor the posts on Instagram, as reported by AdWeek.

https://instagram.com/p/ysJHTgj9mC/

In addition to offering discounts, Gap has created an on Facebook, promoted on Twitter, to encourage audiences to walk-in.

Importance of Social Referrals in Retailing

 

According to Google Insights, Social advertising and Referrals play a different role in the customer journey.Referrals are a step closer to the final shopping action for the US shopper customer journey.

For Christmas as found by IBM Digital Analytics, Facebook referrals drove an average of USD 89.80 per order, while Pinterest referrals averaged USD 99.86 per order.

Facebook, the overwhelming leader in social referral traffic, surged during the fourth quarter of 2014, and now drives nearly 25 percent of the web’s traffic, according to a report released by Shareaholic.

Facebook’s total share of visits to Shareaholic’s network was 24.64 percent in December. Second-place Pinterest’s share was 5.06 percent, nearly five times less than Facebook. The next six social platforms — Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube — had a combined total of less than 2percent .

 

For the UK market, Facebook remains the most valuable social network for retailers, accounting for an average of 65 percent of social referrals to the 29 Elite and Leading brands assessed. YouTube follows with 11 percent, Twitter with 9 percent, Reddit and Weibo on 5 percent and Pinterest on 3 percent. Surprisingly, Weibo, a social network most popular in China, was the source of 5 percent of UK-based social media referrals. Drilling deeper into the numbers, we found:

• Facebook was most significant to M&S during the four weeks monitored, making up more than 90 percent of social media referrals among desktop users
• Reddit is a relatively significant traffic source to Urban Outfitters, providing almost 30 percent of social media referrals
• YouTube supplied more than 25 percent of Argos’ social media referrals, a higher portion than for any other retailer
• No retailer received a higher portion of its social referrals from Twitter than Waitrose, at roughly 25 percent Bathstore received approximately 15 percent of inbound traffic from social networks from Pinterest, more than for any of the other retailers involved in the study
• Clarks received top referrals from Weibo, which made up more than 30% of its total social traffic from desktop users.

Social Referrals Strategy for Brands

Brands need to be ready with a Social Media Referral Strategy. Here is a quick guide to guide you through basics of Social Media Referral strategy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*The survey was conducted for NRF by Prosper Insights & Analytics. The poll of 6,375 consumers was conducted from January 6-13, 2015 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.3 percentage points.

Source: NRF