What Will Valentine’s Day Be Like During A Pandemic?

Valentine’s Day. You either love it or hate it.

Some may enjoy the large crowd and sappy spirit, some may wallow in their singlehood. This year, however, is certainly going to be a distinctive and unfamiliar Valentine’s experience for everyone.

As the pandemic limits our mobility to celebrate this romantic (or to some, corporate) holiday, people are forced to in more creative and virtual ways. Hence, e-commerce aggregator, iPrice Group, conducted a study on the increasing online interest in romantic gifts and the rise of new dating apps in select Asian countries.

Gift-Giving Is A Love Language to Get Used to

iPrice observed certain Asian countries’ Google searches on romantic gifts, namely in the Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia. Comparing 2019 with 2020, there was a 57% increase in searches on romantic gifts during the pandemic.

iPrice categorized “romantic gifts” into different keywords. Care packages recorded to have the biggest surge in searches, reaching 238%. If you’ve noticed your friends posting about received care packages over the pandemic, you’re not alone. Data confirms that Asians have been into the whole fad of looking for care packages to send to their beloveds.

Scented candles also had a 236% surge in Google searches in 2020. This may either be a romantic gift or a self-love purchase as people spend more time unwinding indoors. Similarly, lingerie, an item that can be given to a lover or self, has also had an increase of 82% in search volume.

The more obvious romantic gifts, such as roses and flowers had experienced an immense increase of 123% and 83% respectively. Meanwhile, chocolates and bouquets increased by 50% and 49% respectively. This is backed up by iPrice’s previous study, which stated that each country in Southeast Asia had an increased interest in chocolates as they find comfort in sweets during the pandemic.

As many young couples were forced to transform their relationship into an LDR due to social distancing, it is not a surprise that they’d be compensating by sending each other thoughtful gifts. We can expect the same behavior at a higher volume during Valentine’s Day.

Singles Turn to Apps to Keep Their Dating Lives Alive

The dating landscape itself has changed so much as the virus limits singles to meet people online and go on virtual dates. iPrice Group observed an increase in keyword results (between February 2020 and January 2021) in relation to each country’s top 5 dating apps. Hence, more dating apps have been emerging lately.

What this means is that if a person types any of the top dating apps in the app store, like “Tinder” for example, results for apps like Tinder would show. iPrice observed such an increase in suggested dating apps related to dating apps in all Asian countries during the pandemic.

The Philippines comes at number three, right after Malaysia, with the most increase in keyword results on dating apps. The country recorded a surge of 38% in keyword results of dating apps in the app store. This means that Filipinos now have more options to mingle in. Well, at least online.

Taiwan takes the top spot as it experienced a 194% surge of dating apps. Perhaps Taiwan lacked a plethora of dating apps before the pandemic and has been catching on since then.

That said, what could potentially cause dating apps to emerge in Asia? The plausible hypothesis would be an increase in demand for dating apps. Otherwise, why would many developers invest in this?

The more popular dating apps, such as Bumble and Hinge, have also recorded an increase in messages and demand for virtual dates in the West.

They say that courtship has changed so much over the years. Well, with a pandemic, it definitely had once again. Perhaps this could have a long-lasting and distinct effect on couples that emerged and coexisted during the pandemic. Only time can tell. In the meantime, one thing’s for sure: Valentine’s Day will be celebrated with the help of the Internet.

 

Methodology

The search volume was obtained from Google keyword planner, using the keywords “chocolates,” “flowers,” “roses,” “care package,” “bouquets,” “scented candles,” “lingerie,” “jewelry,” and “perfume” in select Asian countries (Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia). The increase of searches was compared between 2019 and 2020. The top 5 dating apps per country were determined as the apps with the highest number of searches on Google trends & Baidu trends. The keyword result number of searches on the app store was based on deepaso.com’s data and is defined as the search result number of keywords in App Store search. The data compared was taken from the months February 2020 & January 2021. 

iPrice Group is a meta-search website operating in seven countries across Southeast Asia namely; Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, and Hong Kong. Currently, iPrice compares and catalogues more than 5 billion and receives about 20-30 million monthly visits across the region. iPrice currently operates three business lines: price comparison for electronics and health & beauty; product discovery for fashion and home & living; and coupons