Valentine’s Day remains among the highest selling occasions for local retailers in the business of helping lovers show their affection.

Christmas, Mother’s Day and back-to-school are other occasions that churn out high sales.

Kevin O’Brien-Chang, Chairman of Fontana Pharmacy told Observer Online that while Christmas produces the company’s highest sales of the year, Valentine’s Day is in close competition with Mother’s Day for second. He stated that the sales spikes are usually seen the day before Valentine’s Day when predominantly men are making last minute purchases to surprise women.

“Three big holidays we have for Fontana are Christmas, obviously, which is the biggest, and the other two are Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day may be a little ahead of Valentine’s Day but Valentine’s Day holds a strong position in our annual sales calendar because we have the gifts, the perfumes and things that appeal to women,” O’Brien-Chang said.

“Eighty per cent of the sales around that time is men buying for women and every year you see the increase in sales compared to normal days. The increase tends to happen the day before Valentine’s Day and one of the big sellers are our baskets, because the men are not sure what to get. So flowers, baskets, chocolates, perfumes— we don’t carry the flowers but Fontana is the lovers’ shop,” the chairman added.

Flower shops are also reporting a spike in sales during Valentine’s Day, as especially, red roses are usually in high demand during this time. Flowers are often used to augment other gifts or as a pre-cursor for something bigger later on.

Geoffrey Shields, chief executive officer (CEO) of Shields and Shields Greenhouses, a popular provider of flowers, told Observer Online that the increase in sales during Valentine’s Day is mainly due to the fact that the in demand red roses are in short supply and therefore costs more.

“Flowers are extremely short in supply during this time and therefore much more costly. Sales in terms of dollars are biggest at Valentine’s due to the high cost of flowers and because only one flower, red roses, is in demand,” the CEO said.

He added that for this reason, Valentine’s Day is the company’s top spending day, even higher than Mother’s Day or Christmas.

For Pavilion Jewellers, there is a clear margin between the amount spent on Valentine’s Day and other special days.

Martin Kahn, senior manager at the jewelry store stated that while there are some sales for Valentine’s Day, it is not as big as during the Christmas period.

“People come in to purchase stuff for Valentine’s Day. They buy jewelry, watches, perfumes and we see both genders coming to buy stuff. Valentine’s Day is not as big as Christmas when it comes to sales though, Christmas is the biggest,” Kahn said.