Small Business News: Valentine's Day Means Big Business

I couldn’t let Valentine’s Day go by without at least mentioning it. So, Happy Valentine’s Day! And while you’re running out to the store for last minute purchases, or maybe you’re boycotting the day and ignoring all things red and pink, I collected some trivia about February 14 that shows the business side and the history of the holiday. If nothing else, it can help you appreciate the money changing hands in honor of the chubby Cupid guy with the arrow. So file these tidbits away - you never know when you'll want to use them as conversation starters:

• 15% of U.S. women send themselves flowers on Valentine's Day.
• 73% of people who buy flowers for Valentine's Day are men, while only 27 percent are women.
• About 1 billion Valentine's Day cards are exchanged each year. That's the largest seasonal card-sending occasion of the year, next to Christmas.
• About 3% of pet owners will give Valentine's Day gifts to their pets.
• Alexander Graham Bell applied for his patent on the telephone, an "Improvement in Telegraphy", on Valentine's Day, 1876.
• California produces 60 percent of American roses, but the vast number sold on Valentine's Day in the United States are imported, mostly from South America. Approximately 110 million roses, the majority red, will be sold and delivered within a three-day time period.
• Cupid, another symbol of Valentines Day, became associated with it because he was the son of Venus, the Roman god of love and beauty. Cupid often appears on Valentine cards holding a bow and arrows because he is believed to use magical arrows to inspire feelings of love.
• During the late 1800s, postage rates around the world dropped, and the obscene St. Valentine's Day card became popular, despite the Victorian era being otherwise very prudish. As the numbers of racy valentines grew, several countries banned the practice of exchanging Valentine's Days cards. During this period, Chicago's post office rejected more than 25,000 cards on the grounds that they were so indecent, they were not fit to be carried through the U.S. mail.
• During the Middle Ages, the belief that birds chose their mates on St. Valentine's Day led to the idea that boys and girls would do the same. Up through the early 1900s, the Ozark hill people in the eastern United States thought that birds and rabbits started mating on February 14, a day for them which was not only Valentine's Day but Groundhog Day as well.
• On February 14, 270 A.D., Roman Emperor Claudius II, dubbed "Claudius the Cruel," beheaded a priest named Valentine for performing marriage ceremonies. Claudius II had outlawed marriages when Roman men began refusing to go to war in order to stay with their wives.
• Hallmark has over 1330 different cards specifically for Valentine's Day.