Priceless in Valentine’s Day celebrations, while strengthening relationships with their customers,” commented Max Chion, executive vice president, global acceptance products for MasterCard. The study identified some other purchasing trends, highlighting some notable differences around the globe:
- The personal touch: Globally, 90 percent of shoppers made purchases in-person, whereas only 6 percent preferred to make their transactions online. Europeans made the most of buying online with over a fifth (21 percent) of transactions taking place via the internet.
- Experiences over physical items: Spending patterns across the globe show an increasing number of people are treating their loved ones to meals in restaurants (33 percent) and hotel stays (28 percent). Shoppers in Latin America (54 percent) and the United States (38 percent) saw the majority of transactions in their regions at restaurants, while the Asia Pacific, Europe and Middle East regions preferred to get away from it all by prioritizing hotel stays.
- Still saying it with flowers: In general, there was a slight decline in the sale of flowers and cards during the three years. However, Latin Americans are bucking this trend by almost doubling their spending on flowers (92 percent) during this period, whereas the Middle East where the only region to show an increase in purchases of cards, and by a significant amount of 107 percent too.
