What's the best or worst gift you've received from a partner on Valentines Day? Well focusing on the bad, a recent survey has found that young people are more than twice as likely to return Valentine's Day gifts as middle aged Britons and six times as likely as Baby boomers. To tell us why, here's consumer expert Lucy Davies.
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00:00 "It's such a huge moment for certain types of retailers and services this time of year,
00:07 like restaurants, like in chocolate shops, lingerie, wine, and you know, that kind of
00:15 thing. Gift cards, of course. It really is their biggest shopping spike of the year,
00:21 so it's so important they get it right."
00:22 A widespread dip in spending and a general decline in economic activity means the UK
00:27 is now in a recession. December last year, usually a time where shoppers are handing
00:31 over the most cash, saw a spending slump instead. And so, retailers looked to the first big
00:37 gifting holiday of this year to lift their sales. And it seems, from the stats, people
00:41 weren't put off from splashing the cash this Valentine's Day.
00:44 "It's funny because with costs of living crisis, you'd have thought that people would
00:49 perhaps not spend so much on Valentine's Day. But it looks as though it's been a bigger
00:57 Valentine's Day as ever. It's still a really, really popular time."
01:00 It comes though with news that seven in ten Brits have returned items in the last year.
01:04 According to the latest estimates, these returns cost UK retailers a massive £60 billion a
01:10 year.
01:11 "Generation Z, so those people aged 16 to 24, are actually more than twice as likely
01:17 to return things as Generation X, which is slightly older people."
01:22 And it's not just Valentine's Day. Nearly a quarter of Gen Zers, those aged between
01:26 16 and 24, have also secretly returned the gifts they received at Christmas time. However,
01:32 not every gift goes back to the shops. According to the data, nearly half of Gen Zers, 43%,
01:38 don't bother to return items if they cost less than a tenner, while 46% re-gift their
01:43 unwanted items to others.
01:44 "We also found that, funnily enough, men are more likely to return gifts without telling
01:48 their partners than women. But I think that's probably just so as not to upset anyone."
01:53 Why do you think there is this bit of a generational gap? Do you think young people are more readily
01:58 returning things, or do you think that they're just being more honest about it?
02:02 I think they're just more used to being able to return things. I mean, since Covid, we
02:10 all learnt to shop online. We all became really good at it. And that generation, that's all
02:14 they've known is shopping online. Whereas the older generation might have just, you
02:19 know, originally just shopped on their high street. And it's a mixture of things. But
02:25 I think younger people really, really demand personalisation. They demand shops, retailers
02:30 really, really knowing who they are and getting it right first time.
02:34 So the way we shop has changed, but will it continue to do so in the coming years? With
02:38 technology ever evolving, customers can expect the way we shop to continue to develop along
02:43 with it.
02:44 I think AI is only going to get bigger and more important in our lives. And I think it's
02:49 also, it's nice that it's become better known from a consumer point of view that AI is driving
02:57 these things that help us become better shoppers, help support our shopping habits. I think
03:01 people are starting to get more aware of that now, which is great.
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