UK shoppers set to spend £653m on Father’s Day this year

Father’s Day spend is forecast to reach £635m in 2019, less than half of the amount spent on Mother’s Day but this occasion will experience higher growth than its more popular female counterpart, with spend set to rise by 1.0% (equating to £6.2m), according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

With all retail categories associated with Father’s Day expected to grow this year, cards and gift wrap is set to be the best performing category, with anticipated spend rising 1.4% on 2018. While fewer consumers participate in this occasion compared to the female counterpart, the act of giving a card is easy for consumers to do without spending too much money given the strain on disposable incomes.

Zoe Mills, Retail Analyst at GlobalData commented: “With the seasonal events calendar relatively clear compared to earlier this year with Mother’s Day falling close to Easter and World Book Day, retailers have focused promotional displays on Father’s Day, giving customers more opportunity to shop. Cards and gift wrap will see a slight slowdown in growth, but growth in this category will outstrip Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day, highlighting the opportunity for non-card specialists to include these items in their Father’s Day ranges.”

The gifting market is significantly smaller for Father’s Day, compared to Mother’s Day; despite this the market is outperforming and forecast to grow marginally to reach £352.7m in 2019. With retailers, such as Card Factory, expanding gifting ranges particularly for these seasonal occasions, consumers now have greater access to low value gifting ranges.

Mills concludes: “Gifting retailers are showing more sensitivity to customers who are not partaking in the occasion. Marks & Spencer, Superdrug and Menkind have emailed subscribers ahead of the event to ascertain if they want to receive communications promoting ranges. Retailers are acting sensitively to ensure their customers are not receiving unwanted communication but this has also resulted in consumers being more aware of the event ahead of time. This is a relatively new retail trend, but many retailers have already applied greater sensitivity around occasions and we expect to see more following suit in future especially around events such as Valentine’s Day which can be a sore spot for those without a significant other.”

Media Enquiries

If you are a member of the press or media and require any further information, please get in touch, as we're very happy to help.



DECODED Your daily industry news round-up

This site is registered on wpml.org as a development site.