REDMOND, WASH. — What will the hot gifts be for Father’s Day this year? Siras.com has a pretty good idea, based on sale and return trends of the top Father’s Day gifts from last year, according to its predictive analysis provided exclusively to TWICE.
Comparing items sold in the two weeks before Father’s Day with those sold in the two weeks after, Siras’ analysis shows that last year’s big winners in terms of sheer unit volume were computers, portable media players, and lawn and garden products. In each of those product categories, sales surged by at least 34 percent (and in a couple of cases many times that) in the two weeks leading up to Father’s Day.
Which products saw the greatest change as a percentage of their typical sales? That analysis reveals a different set of winners: audio products, whose sales skyrocketed 86 percent; hygiene and grooming products, whose sales rose 53 percent; cellphones, which rose 48 percent; digital picture frames, which rose 44 percent; and radar detectors, which rose 37 percent.
“Radar detectors were the big-ticket item that could help fathers avoid getting a big ticket,” said Peter Junger, president of Siras.
“Overall, audio products saw the biggest surge as a percentage of normal sales,” Junger continued. “Portable media player docks were incredibly popular. In the hygiene and grooming category, electric shavers were popular.”
Once fathers received their gifts, did they keep them or return them? Generally, they kept them, the analysis shows, though products in at least the five most popular categories experienced returns that were somewhat higher than usual.
For example, 13 percent of audio purchases leading up to Father’s Day were returned right after Father’s Day. For purchases made in the two weeks following Father’s Day, that percentage dropped to 8.4 percent. Other product categories experienced similar increases in return rates, though often the difference was less pronounced. Returns of cellphones, for example, rose to 5.8 percent compared with a more typical 4.1 percent.
“Father’s Day was a boon to retailers not just because product sales grew significantly,” said Junger, “but also because most products sold stayed sold. Return rates were a little higher than average but not egregiously so. Together, smart shoppers and grateful fathers made the day something that retailers could celebrate.”
Siras, based here, is a subsidiary of Nintendo of America that provides retailers and manufacturers Cloud- and web-based services for tracking and validating sales and returns of products.
