Christmas is barely over and in the world of retail we’re on to the spring occasions namely Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Easter.
The wider media has been busy drumming up stories about sightings of Easter eggs in stores already and our very own forecourt retailer Goran Raven has beaten many to the mark by having Crème Eggs and Mini Eggs out on shelf before Christmas.
This year St Valentine’s Day (February 14th) falls on a Friday, with the start to a weekend a much better time to celebrate it than, say, mid-week.
Thanks to covid and the cost-of-living crisis, there has been a big trend towards celebrating the occasion at home in the past few years.
Retailers such as M&S do a great job in promoting meal deals for occasions such as Valentine’s Day with their ‘dine in for £x’ offers. And there’s no reason why forecourt retailers cannot emulate this in their stores too.
One of the main features of Valentine’s Day is that it creeps up on consumers. Many will have a vague idea of when it is but don’t realise the actual day it falls on until they see displays in-store. This is your cue to really shout about the event and mop up all those last-minute shoppers, some of whom will only realise it’s Valentine’s Day on February 14th.
Mother’s Day this year falls on Sunday March 30. This garners much more attention than Father’s Day for some reason and is a gift for florists and card retailers.
In years gone by, ‘forecourt flowers’ was a derogatory term meaning a sad-looking bouquet of carnations for a fiver. However, many forecourts have upped their game by sourcing flowers from local florists who charge a premium price, quite rightly so for a premium product.
Jet New North Road in Ilford prides itself on its stunning displays of flowers which result in stunning sales for the forecourt site. Last Valentine’s Day alone, it sold more than £20,000-worth of flowers.
Easter is later this year, with Easter Sunday on April 20th. This means a much longer lead time to sell chocolate and more time for consumers to buy Easter eggs, eat them and have to buy more.
If you thought Easter was on the way out, think again as Nielsen Scantrack data found that Easter 2024 was the biggest spring season yet, with value and unit growth outperforming total FMCG and confectionery trends at 13.5% and 2.4% respectively. And Kantar data revealed that there was also a 14% increase in trip spend and a 6% rise in trips compared to the rest of the year.
Another interesting fact about Easter is that, according to Allstar’s nationwide charging network, it’s the busiest holiday for EV charging.
Analysis from Allstar’s 19,000-plus chargepoints found that Easter is around a third busier for the EV charging network than Christmas.
It also revealed that, according to figures looking at more than half a million charging events, the two busiest days for public charging in the lead-up to the holiday are the Wednesday and Thursday before Good Friday.
Allstar says the Easter bank holiday Monday saw around half as many charges taking place compared to the days before and after. And Easter Sunday was the quietest day for public charging of the entire two-week holiday period, with just over a third of the volume of charges of the Thursday before Good Friday.
Data like this is interesting but also extremely useful as it means those of you with EV chargepoints can cash in and make Easter EV charging trips a bit more enjoyable as drivers ‘scramble’ for chargers.
Finally, it’s key to keep an eye on the weather, as sometimes Easter marks the start of barbecue season for some consumers. And with it later than usual this year, there’s a much better chance that we might enjoy some barbecue weather.
