With Valentine's Day less than a week away, flower shops in Romania brace themselves for the occasion, which is usually marked by higher sales.

Online flower shop FlorideLux.ro has already started to receive orders for Valentine's Day, and estimates it will make EUR 20,000 in sales during this period. Their sales during this period would thus be up by a quarter on the same period of 2013. For its first traditional franchise store in Brasov, FlorideLux.ro estomates sales of EUR 7,000 during this period.

Some clients prefer a bigger head start: “The first orders for February 14, 2014 came from the summer of 2013, as some repeat clients preferred to make plans ahead of time,” said Marius Dosinescu, CEO FlorideLux.ro.

Last year, Romanian bought more flowers and gifts online via card. The volume of online payments for these gifts went up almost three times, said Rareș Florea, Online Sales Manager with PayU Romania. The average shopping cart value was up by a quarter last year, to some EUR 36.5.

editor@romania-insider.com