ASB Magazine

Adult retailers can follow a similar strategy for those guests who do not frequently visit adult stores.
BY MIKE DRAKE

St.

Valentine’s Day is thought by many to be a "fake" holiday invented by the greeting card and chocolate giants to sell products. Actually the history of V-Day is steeped in sexuality. Eight-hundred years before the establishment of Valentine’s Day, the Romans practiced a pagan celebration in mid-February commemorating young men’s rite of passage to the god Lupercus. The celebration featured a lottery in which young men would draw the names of teenage girls from a box. The girl assigned to each young man in that manner would be his sexual companion during the remaining year. In an effort to do away with the pagan festival, Pope Gelasius ordered a slight change in the lottery. Instead of the names of young women, the box would contain the names of saints. Both men and women were allowed to draw from the box, and the game was to emulate the ways of the saint they drew. Many of the young Roman men were none too pleased with the rule changes.

Instead of the pagan god Lupercus, the Church looked for a suitable patron saint of love to take his place. They found an appropriate choice in Valentine, who, in AD 270 had been beheaded by Emperor Claudius.

Claudius had determined that married men made poor soldiers. So he banned marriage from his empire. But Valentine would secretly marry young men that came to him. When Claudius found out about Valentine, he first tried to convert him to paganism. But Valentine reversed the strategy, trying instead to convert Claudius. When he failed, he was beheaded.

During the days that Valentine was imprisoned, he fell in love with the blind daughter of his jailer. His love for her, and his great faith, managed to miraculously heal her from her blindness before his death. Before he was taken to his death, he signed a farewell message to her, "From your Valentine." The phrase has been used on his day ever since.

Although the lottery for women had, sadly, been banned by the church, the mid-February holiday in commemoration of St. Valentine was still used by Roman men to seek the affection of women. It became a tradition for the men to give the ones they admired handwritten messages of affection, containing Valentine’s name.

The first Valentine card grew out of this practice. The first true Valentine card was sent in 1415 by Charles, duke of Orleans, to his wife. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London at the time.
Cupid, another symbol of the holiday, became associated with it because he was the son of Venus, the Roman god of love and beauty. Cupid often appears on Valentine cards.

Valentine’s Day was probably imported into North America in the 19th century by British settlers. In the United States, the first mass-produced valentines of embossed paper lace were produced and sold shortly after 1847 by Esther Howland (1828-1904) of Worcester, Massachusetts. Her father operated a large book and stationery store, and she took her inspiration from an English valentine she had received.

Since 2001, the Greeting Card Association has been giving an annual "Esther Howland Award for a Greeting Card Visionary". In the second half of the 20th century, the practice of exchanging cards was extended to all manners of gifts in the United States, usually from a man to a woman. Such gifts typically include roses and chocolates. In the 1980s, the diamond industry began to promote Valentine’s Day as an occasion for giving jewelry.
 
That’s all well and good, but what does it mean to retailers? The National Retail Federation rates Valentine’s Day as the 3rd most popular holiday (Halloween is often wrongly identified as the #2 holiday, in truth it is #5)

• Winter holidays (Christmas): $457.4 billion
• Mother’s Day: $13.80 billion
• Valentine’s Day: $13.70 billion


The National Retail Federation also reports

• The average male plans to spend $135.67 on Valentine’s Day gifts.
• The average female plans to spend $68.64 on Valentine’s Day gifts.


So the question a retailer should ask is "How can I get my share of that $13.70 billion?"
To find out answers we need to turn to industrial psychology and look at how the average consumer thinks. If you take a group of men and women and ask them to write down six things and two colors that they associate with Valentine’s Day the majority will write:

• Hearts
• Chocolate
• Love / Sex
• Flowers
• Cupids
• Devils / Imps

And for colors they will write:

• Red
• White

So how can this help the adult retailer? Some retailers recommend an entire "reset" of the store for V-Day but in most cases, such a labor intensive move is not warranted for an adult retailer. Simply making a small to medium display near the front of the store highlighting items that a guest may associate with V-Day should be more than adequate to boost sales.

Let’s start with colors. If your store carries lingerie, stock up red and white lingerie (but not red and white stripes). Try to group red items together into a section of the store for people who are uncomfortable or don’t know what to buy.
A national lingerie retailer calls the stereotypical male’s uncomfort in a lingerie shop "Valentine Confusion" and they make special displays of red lingerie and perfume in red bottles so a man can walk in, grab a few red things, pay and leave with a minimum of embarrassment.
Adult retailers can follow a similar strategy for those guests who do not frequently visit adult stores.
A display of cherry or passion fruit Liquid Love (comes in a heart shaped bottle!), cherry Sex Tarts and Wet Warming, are all red and are the beginnings of a great "red" display. Add some Bubbles Of Love in a 24oz red bottle, Pipedream’s Furry Love Cuff Kit and their red Furry Cuffs, California Exotic’s Jesse’s Funky Cuffs with red covers embroidered with the words HOT and SEX, some flowers made from red panties, a few red fur products from Touch Of Fur, a selection of red vibrators like Cal Exotic’s Ruby Waterproof Lusters or Silicone Sinner, some red feathers from Whip Smart and you will have a Valentine’s display better than the majority of adult stores in your area.

Now add some signage. Simple signage can help increase awareness and even basic signs can increase sales of the highlighted products by 5%.or more. Don’t just run to the local dollar store and buy cardboard hearts. By shopping smart you can create a professional appearance for less than you think. HalfPriceBanners.com offers great custom outdoor banners at prices much lower than you will pay locally. For interior décor, a simple yet professional looking sign set can be purchased from www.ValuDisplay.com for under $40.

According to Hallmark, 60% of all V-Day gifts are purchased six days or less before the holiday. This is a sharp contrast to Christmas, where 85% of people begin their shopping in November. This coming Valentine’s Day falls on a Wednesday. That means that Friday, Feb. 9 until Sunday, Feb. 11 should be especially hectic since it is the last weekend before the holiday. Staff accordingly. If a guest who has never visited your shop before comes in and has to wait in a long line, he/she is 63% less likely to return to your store. Be sure to have adequate staff on hand from the February 8th -14th to make each guest’s experience a happy one.

SO REMEMBER:

• Group red or Valentine’s Day theme items together
• Add signage
• Increase staff