Bizrate Insights recently conducted a survey of over 2500 participants to learn about the shopping patterns U.S. consumers exhibited during Mother’s Day 2023. Here’s what we learned and some recommendations we suggest to best prepare for the holiday next year:

Consumers shop close to the actual date

Almost all consumers made their purchases the month preceding Mother’s Day. More than a third of all shoppers made their purchases within two days of the date itself.

Recommendation: Focus on last-minute buyers

Focus on emotional and impulsive buyers. Strive to deliver fast shipping solutions.
Elevate fast-delivery as a feature, and add messaging about “getting it there on time.”
Speak to their fear of not showing their appreciation for Mom in time.

Older Moms celebrate the motherhood of their adult daughters

Our survey showed that the age bracket spending the most are people aged 65+. This seems to point toward parents of adult children with kids of their own, using the occasion to show their support for their adult daughters who are now raising children of their own.

Recommendation: Tailor your messaging to this age group

This demographic historically does not receive nearly enough focus during this holiday. Adjusting your messaging around this age bracket and their story could make a big difference to your bottom line.

Flowers are the big winner

While almost half of our respondents said they bought flowers, the next most popular category was “something else” – hinting at a shift away from traditional Mother’s Day gifts.

Most of our respondents bought flowers for Mom. Taking her out for a nice meal and getting her a card are next in popularity. Less frequent gifts were jewelry, perfume, and chocolate.

But the most interesting finding is that 14% purchased gifts outside of the traditional Mother’s Day expectation.

Recommendation: Adapt your offerings to Mother’s Day

There is a growing opportunity to speak to Mother’s Day through your offerings. If you have items among your inventory that qualify as appropriate gifts for women with children, adjust the messaging to this holiday and see your conversion climb.

Women shopped consistently more than men

Female shoppers outspent male shoppers in every income bracket. This is consistent with the history of the holiday. Fun Fact: the holiday was created after the Civil War as a way for women to support one another – as a call for solidarity among women.

Generally speaking, women showed that they plan their gift purchases more than men. More men did their shopping a few days and a few weeks before Mother’s Day, while more women shopped over a month in advance. More women shopped throughout the year. And about the same number of men and women shopped last minute on Mother’s Day.

Recommendation: Speak to women

While the current messaging encouraging men to shop for their wives, and sons to shop for their mothers can be effective, we believe ecommerce sites stand a stronger chance of increasing traffic and conversions through a message of women’s sisterhood and shared motherhood. There’s an opportunity here for messaging about community and belonging, through a call for solidarity among mothers everywhere. Such values can make folks rally behind a brand.

Married consumers spent the most

Married shoppers accounted for a much higher level of purchasing than any other relationship status.

Recommendation: celebrate marriage and family

Many shoppers may see successful, happy motherhood as an extension of a successful, happy marriage. Many others may see successful, happy motherhood as integrally related to a successful, happy family. When we apply this to what we know about 65+ shoppers, we see an intergenerational message about family as well. Weave messaging celebrating the family as a whole.

Spending habits haven’t changed

This is important in light of the constant and ongoing fear of a recession. What our survey uncovered is that consumers are not reacting to the economic fears from the pundits. By large, consumers are remaining consistent to their shopping habits from previous years, and are not exhibiting any panic or reservation in their spending.

Recommendation: ‘Business as Usual’ messaging is best

While fears of a recession are real, we encourage you to react to these by making inventory adjustments, bolstering your business credit and making other behind-the-scenes austerity tweaks – while maintaining a calm and positive message in your front-end content. Avoid any tone of “belt-tightening” or frugality. Our data shows us these purchases are driven by emotion and impulse. Speak to that impulse, over speaking of savings or deals.

Conclusion:

Our survey showed that married, female, and over-65 shoppers are the biggest spenders on Mother’s Day. We learned that people shop late for this holiday, so last-minute promotions and expedient shipping are good conversion tools. Most importantly, the data seems to reflect that there is no recession panic among consumers when it comes to Mom. This bodes well for your ecommerce business, and points to a potentially strong 2023 holiday season.

We hope you’ve found these insights helpful. While market analysis can help steer your efforts, there’s nothing better than collecting feedback and data from your customers themselves. Bizrate Insights offers a suite of Voice-of-Customer solutions you can easily integrate into your site.

Our solutions can tell you more about your customers than any other tool in the market – including demographics, sentiment and Net Promoter Score. What’s more: Our tools come at no cost to the merchant. Contact us today to learn more!