“Americans,” according the National Retail Federation, “will spend more than ever as they put on their favorite green outfits to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day this year.”
As the above-linked summary states, “spending for St. Patrick’s Day is expected to reach $5.3 billion, an all-time high in the survey’s 13-year history. The total is up dramatically from last year’s $4.4 billion and tops the previous record of $4.8 billion set in 2014.”
And while “retailers should expect a nice boost in sales as consumers purchase apparel, decorations, food and beverages,” it is “millennials (who) are expected to take the lead among the festivities, Prosper Insights Principal Analyst Pam Goodfellow said.”
Which continues a trend of “new” holidays being added to the list from which you can gauge economic trajectories. Originally it was Christmas spending, then the broader “holiday season” as it grew to include Black Friday, and then Halloween became as much, or more, an “adult” holiday, and was suddenly added into the calculus for many businesses.
And now the spring revelries of St. Patrick’s Day joins the mix, showing other long range demographic changes that will continue to affect merchants and businesses. Among those anticipated changes, “a new study from MasterCard found that digital wallets were mentioned in 75% of tracked conversations that social media users had about new ways to pay,” according to Business Insider.
The study was compiled by analyzing “3.5 million conversations on social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube,” though no word on how some of those ostensibly private chats were monitored.
Surprisingly though, people were already looking ahead to the next type of payment technology beyond that: “The study found that use of wearables for payments attracted the highest amount of excitement on social media among emerging technologies topics, followed by the IoT and smart assistants.”
The “wearables” would presumably be green this time year, and IoT, in case you’re wondering, refers to the “Internet of Things,” which we’ve reported on previously — where other “regular” devices, like refrigerators, stoves, TVs, thermostats, etc., are all “online,” so that your ‘fridge could order milk (from an Amazon drone?) when you’re running low, etc.
And yet, the same study showed that despite the excitement, “more that people remain loyal to traditional payment methods and show little enthusiasm for picking up new habits.”
Meaning they’ll be using credit cards for awhile yet, and are only moved to change when they feel the “new method” is safe, and understandable to them.
This will point to some generational differences in payment methods over the years ahead, though it’s worth noting that credit cards actually took several decades to “catch on” to the extent we see them today.
It also points to your customers wanting their payments and information to be kept safe, and made convenient, by you, whether in-store or online. And that’s where AVPS can help, whether it’s St. Patrick’s Day, Juneteenth, Cyber Monday, or any other time of year!
Contact your AVPS rep today, and let us help processing the virtual “green” from your customers!
