Red roses may be passe this Valentine's Day

Hoping to get some long-stem red roses this Valentine's Day? You could be disappointed, as a new survey suggests that romantic partners may go for less traditional and more colourful arrangements this year.

A study of consumer search trends across top floral e-commerce sites in the US and found 'rose' searches comprised nearly 20 per cent of the total site searches

but interest in red roses has waned, favouring an array of less traditional colours.

To understand shifts in consumer behaviour, a software company SLI in New Zealand, analysed more than 1.2 million e-commerce site searches on leading floral

websites taking place between January 6 and February 6 – the month leading up to Valentine's Day.

The company also compared rose-colour-specific search data during February 1-8 to a similar research study conducted in 2015.

"SLI is seeing a colourful trend in Valentine's Day rose giving. When we looked at e-commerce search data among the top five rose colours in early February 2015

compared with early February 2017, we found interest in the most traditionally romantic colour 'red' declined 40 per cent," said Chris Brubaker, CMO SLI Systems.

"In 2015, pink was the second-most popular colour, and now it's not even in the top five," said Brubaker.

Red roses comprised of just 28 per cent of searches – a 45 per cent decline from 2015 – closely followed by white (21 per cent). Blue, rainbow and purple roses

were the other sought after roses.

Roses remain the favourite, comprising of 60 per cent of searches among the top five most popular flower types – more than three times the searches of runner up

flower types: lilies (18 per cent), tulips (8 per cent), orchids (7 per cent) and sunflowers (7 per cent).

According to an annual Valentine's Day survey by the US National Retail Federation (NRF) consumers will spend an average USD 136.57 this Valentine's, down from last year's record-high USD 146.84.

They are expected to spend $2 billion on flowers, $4.3 billion on jewellery (given by 19 per cent of shoppers), and 3.8 billion on an evening out (37 per cent), among other things.