The Saturday Problem: My Predictions for Valentine’s Day Flower Sales in 2026

My Prediction For Valentine's Day Flower Sales In 2026

I can still smell the coffee from that Valentine's week in 2011. We had converted our double garage in Pottsville into an office by then, proper carpet, six desks, a little kitchenette in the corner, and I was 8.5 months pregnant with Ivy, huge, uncomfortable, and answering phones that would not stop ringing. We had drafted in two friends to help because we had completely underestimated the volume, and I remember looking over at Jody mid afternoon on the Friday, her face somewhere between shell shocked and impressed, when she said "OMG, what have you created...?". Good question. We were still figuring that out ourselves.

* This was our Pottsville garage office in 2011. I was 8.5 months pregnant with Ivy when this was taken, right in the middle of a Valentine's week that taught us more about logistics than any textbook ever could.

That was 15 years ago now and after 18 Valentine's Days in this game, you start to recognise patterns. You learn what drives people to send flowers, when they send them, what they spend. But this year feels genuinely different, and I wanted to write down my predictions before the 14th so we can all come back afterward and see how wrong I was.

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The Saturday Problem

Valentine's Day 2026 falls on a Saturday. This matters more than most people realise.

Anna and I sat down last week to talk through what this actually means for the business. Anna has been with us for 15 years now, she was one of our first hires back in the Pottsville days, a proper florist before she came to us with years of experience in actual shops making actual bouquets. When I need to gut check my instincts about flower trends, she's the person I call.

Here's the thing about weekday Valentine's Days. A huge chunk of our orders go to workplaces. Offices, hospitals, schools, reception desks. There's a public performance element to it, flowers arriving at work means colleagues see them, there's a bit of showing off, a bit of "oh who sent you those?", and that social proof drives a lot of purchasing behaviour. Men in particular, and I'm generalising here but the data backs it up, like the idea that their gesture is witnessed. Saturday removes all of that.

When it falls on a Saturday, couples are together. They wake up in the same house. The surprise element changes completely. And here's the other thing, people can just go and buy flowers themselves. Pop down to the local florist or even the supermarket, grab a bunch, hand them over in person. The need for delivery drops significantly.

What We Got Right And Wrong Last Year

I'm not going to pretend we nail these predictions every year because we don't. Last year I thought we'd see a bigger shift toward arrangements over bunches and that didn't really materialise, at least not to the degree I expected. I also thought native flowers would have a stronger showing and while they did okay, roses still dominated like they always do. Some things don't change.

What we did get right was the timing. We predicted a surge of orders on the Wednesday and Thursday for Friday delivery, and that's exactly what happened. People leaving it later and later, which creates chaos for our partner florists but seems to be the trend now.

Anna called the chocolate pairings though. She said early January that we'd see more people adding chocolates to their orders and she was spot on, our Florist's Choice Bunch With Chocolates did really well. I asked her how she knew and she just shrugged and said something about it being a "safe bet for blokes who panic". Fair enough.

My Predictions For 2026

* This data represents 18 years of historical patterns—specifically how volume shifts when the big day lands on a Saturday.

Right, here's where I stick my neck out.

Overall volume will drop around 20 percent.

We've seen this before when Valentine's lands on a Saturday. The workplace delivery factor accounts for most of it. When it falls midweek, CBD offices flood with deliveries, hospitals, schools, reception desks everywhere. That public gesture element drives a huge chunk of orders. Saturday wipes it out almost entirely.

The week will build gradually, then explode on Friday.

This is one of the frustrating things about Valentine's Day compared to Mother's Day. With Mother's Day, kids seem to have their act together, orders come in steadily through the week, it's almost linear. Valentine's Day is chaos by comparison. Partners procrastinate. We see volume creep up day on day from around the 10th, maybe a small bump on Wednesday, a bigger one Thursday, and then Friday the 13th will be absolute madness. Some years we get a significant chunk of orders on the actual morning of Valentine's Day, people waking up in a panic, but with Saturday delivery requiring orders by 10am, that window shrinks dramatically this year.

Expect three distinct rushes on that Friday.

Based on what we've seen across 18 Valentine's Days, orders spike before work starts for most people, say 6am to 8am, people sorting it out with their morning coffee before the day gets away from them. Then there's the lunchtime rush, 12pm to 1.30pm, when the "oh no I forgot" crowd finally gets around to it. But the big one hits after work, from around 6pm through to 10pm. That's when the panic really sets in. This year, with Saturday being the actual day, I expect that Friday evening rush to be even more intense than usual.

Roses will dominate, again.

Every year I wonder if this will be the year people branch out and every year roses account for around 70 percent of all Valentine's orders. The 6 Red Roses bunch is consistently our most popular product. Single wrapped roses do well for the last minute crowd who want something simple and classic. Anything with roses in the name moves. I don't see 2026 being any different, though I do think arrangements might edge up slightly over bunches for the reasons I mentioned earlier, no vase needed, ready to display when someone's still in their pyjamas on a Saturday morning.

That all said, I am thinking that Australian Native Flowers to surge in 2026 - watch this space. 

Add ons will stay heavy.

Around 90 percent of our Valentine's orders include chocolates or a teddy bear, usually chocolates. This tracks with Anna's prediction last year and I don't expect it to change. The average order sits around $130 and I think that holds this year too. Despite everything going on with cost of living, we're not seeing people trade down. If anything, when it's a private gesture at home rather than a public one at the office, people might feel more comfortable spending up. The audience has changed but the intent hasn't.

Men will still drive the majority of orders, around 65 percent.

The other 35 percent is a mix of women sending to partners, friends sending to friends, daughters sending to mothers. That last one has grown over the years actually. Valentine's Day has softened a bit, it's not purely romantic anymore, but the core is still partners and it's still predominantly men doing the ordering.

Gift card messages will trend longer and more personal.

We cap messages at 250 characters because anything longer gets cut off by our partner florist network feed. But within that limit, Saturday Valentine's messages tend to be more intimate than weekday ones. No colleague is going to read the card when it arrives at home. People write what they actually feel rather than something safe for a workplace audience.

Anonymous senders are basically extinct now.

This one fascinates me. Twenty years ago, around 25 percent of Valentine's orders were anonymous, secret admirers, mystery gestures, all that. Now it's less than 3 percent. I don't know if that's social media, dating apps, or just a cultural shift away from that kind of thing, but the anonymous Valentine's flower delivery is essentially dead. People want credit for their gesture now.

If You're Planning To Order

Look, I'm not going to tell you what to do, but if you're thinking about sending flowers this Valentine's Day, here's what I'd consider. Friday the 13th might actually work in your favour this year. Get your order in early in the week, don't leave it until Thursday afternoon expecting miracles. Our partner florists will be absolutely flat out on that Friday and while we'll do everything we can to get flowers delivered, the earlier you order the smoother it goes for everyone.

Also worth knowing, our delivery fee is $16.95 and we subsidise anything above that in most cases. Same day delivery is available when you order before 2pm weekdays or 10am Saturdays.

> View all our Valentine's Day Flowers

We'll See

I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again. That's the nature of running a business built on a perishable product and human emotion, two things that don't always follow logic. What I do know is that every Valentine's Day since that sweaty, chaotic week in the Pottsville garage has taught us something. Ivy, the baby I was carrying during that madness, is 14 now and plays basketball on Friday nights at Carrara. Asha, who was a toddler crawling around the shop floor in Kingscliff when this all started, is about to graduate year 12. Time moves.

This Saturday Valentine's Day will teach us something new. I'll write a follow up after the 14th to see how these predictions landed. Hopefully not too embarrassingly.