With Mother’s Day right around the corner, business information analysts at IBISWorld estimate that Australians will spend over $1.4 billion on their mums this year – 2.9 per cent more than they spent on Mother’s Day 2013.
IBISWorld anticipates that Australians will spend an average of $61.31 on their mums in the run-up to 11 May, up from $60.47 in 2013 and more than twice the average spent on Dad in anticipation of Father’s Day.
I can hear the Dads grumbling as they read this…
“There are many reasons why spending on mothers is higher than spending on fathers, including the perceived lack of gift options available for Dad,” said IBISWorld Australia General Manager, Dan Ruthven.
“Whereas food, alcohol, sporting goods and the stalwart hankie and sock gift pack are seen as the presents of choice for Dad, Mum enjoys a far broader selection from bouquets to bottles of champagne, perfume and spa treatments,” he explained.
Ruthven tipped cafes and restaurants to rake in the most bucks on this year’s Mother’s Day, with a whopping $310.8 million expected to be pumped into the industry as we take Mum out for brunch, lunch or dinner.
What exactly do mums want for this Mother’s Day?
According to brand strategy and consumer insight agency BrandHook, the days of your Mum being satisfied with a digital photo frame of the family or a vase in which to put her Mother’s Day flowers are well and truly long gone.
In a nationally representative study of 1,100 people in Australia, BrandHook not only asked what was top of the planned Mother’s Day list but validated the global consumer trends they have been analysing over the last three years.
BrandHook’s co-founder, Pip Stocks shared their findings with Anthill saying, “In recent times, we have seen consumer trends fall into three broad buckets. One is around not making the consumer work – enabling them in their day-to-day lives. The second is keeping up with them – so recognizing them as an individual but also the pace at which their lives operate. The third bucket is all around the personalization of the relationship.”
“Recognising they want a personal relationship with businesses, that they want some control in the relationship and how the ability to customize is something valuable. The value equation is still ever-present but there’s three new ways to define this,” she explained.
Stocks added, “When we compared the relevant trends for Mothers versus the general population, while the top two remained were consistent – getting value and durability of products and services – there were differences within the remaining top ten.”
“Wanting to feel good about the purchases they make and the desire to be supporting local business were more prevalent for mothers while the need for indulgent purchases dropped down in importance,” she revealed.
All mum wants is to spend time with you
In fact, when asked what presents would they like if money was no object, the top five responses from Australian mums were holidays, lunch with family, time with family, anything homemade and plants/gardens/flowers.
“Twenty years ago, these mothers would have deemed the bath salts or kitchenware as valuable,” Stocks remarked. “However now, the Australian mother defines value differently and it’s the personalised approach – which is probably why they want the gift voucher option or will trade off something commercial for time with their family.”
