COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — It’s Valentine’s Day. From nice dinners to flowers and chocolate, spending on the holiday is expected to boost the economy this year.
Valentine’s Day spending is expected to reach 14.2 billion in spending this year in the U.S. That’s according to the National Retail Federation. The same report found the average person will spend about $185 on their significant other this year.
I spoke with Platte Floral, a local shop in Colorado Springs, about how this year’s holiday impacts business. I’m told it’s been challenging for this floral shop to keep up with demand. At first, the shop was worried that they were going to see a decrease in sales this year. But it turns out, there were a lot of last-minute shoppers. While people usually place their flower orders ahead of time, people waited until this week to do so. That put pressure on the shop to hire enough delivery drivers and floral designers. Still, they tell me they’re getting it done and working around the clock. They’re appreciative of the business coming in.
“We have to work longer hours, we have to figure out ways to work smarter, not make as many trips back and forth, and have all of our tools handy and the biggest challenge is we have to do all that and still make everything look pretty,” said Emily Winters, the lead floral designer at Platte Floral.
“I get very nervous and panicky, my other designer and I, when we look at this giant stack of orders, we think, “There’s no way. There’s no way we are going to get through it.” But somehow, we always do, you know, we work late, we drink a lot of coffee, we just work really hard,” said Winters.
Flowers are not the only way people spend money on Valentine’s Day. According to the National Retail Federation, 40 percent of people plan on buying gifts online this year.
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