Father's Day disappoints, lags Mother's day spend says GlobalData

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jun 16, 2017

The menswear, male grooming and male gifting categories are less likely to have seen a June uplift from heavy Father’s day spending than women's categories saw from Mother’s Day in March, according to data analysis specialist GlobalData.

It said Friday that weakening consumer confidence, coupled with macroeconomic uncertainty has meant Father’s Day spend on gifts, food and greetings cards will only grow by £3.7m this year to reach a total of £695.2m.

However with inflation announced this week to be running at close to 3%, that means the increase will be mainly accounted for by higher prices rather than expanded volumes.

While food gifting will be the category most affected by higher prices, inflation is also hitting men’s clothing, accessories, footwear and key grooming categories such as fragrance.

The tiny increase in spending expected overall goes against the trend that has seen key events, from Easter to Valentines and, of course, Mother’s Day, becoming much bigger as major gifting days throughout the year. They may not rival Christmas, but their important is growing and giving retailers a lucrative hook around which to build seasonal marketing plans.

However, it seems that consumers are not embracing Father’s day in quite the same way. GlobalData said that last year the proportion of consumers ranking Father's Day as less important than Mother’s Day increased by 15.6 ppts, with 24.5% of shoppers surveyed agreeing. As a result the gap between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day spend widened.

It remains to be seen by how big a margin the total £1.4bn retail spend for Mother’s day for 2017 will beat that of this year’s Father’s Day.

Eleanor Parr, retail analyst at GlobalData said: “As consumers’ disposable incomes become squeezed due to real wage declines, [they] will be more reluctant to allocate discretionary spend on occasions which are considered less important, therefore driving a volume decline in the market.

“Father’s Day spending will become a victim of this trend, with the slight increase in spend driven prominently by increased prices rather than shoppers willingness to upgrade their Father’s Day gift purchases this year.”