I was talking to a friend of mine who's in the online retail business yesterday. He was running around like a headless chicken while on the phone with me. He said he was preparing for a "major event" in the retail calendar and he was a bit behind.

We're just under two weeks away from "Lovers' Day"

I thought about it for a minute, a major event on the "retail calendar". When I sold things on Amazon, I was well aware of Q4, which was when you actually can make money on there. The rest of the year, you're just waiting for Q4 to arrive, and trying not to go under.

❣️Valentine's Day❣️

My friend is 100% right! Valentines day is a massive retail event now. Like Christmas, it's another day when most people feel the need to rush out and buy something they normally wouldn't at a price they normally wouldn't buy them.

I remember walking past the florist a few Valentine's days ago, and seeing the ridiculous price hikes. Some a bouquets had gone up 500%, some higher. Even then, most of them were sold out completely, after city workers stopped to grab them for their loved ones on their way home.

It's also big business for the chocolate industry. Even now, I can already see the heart-shaped chocolates all over the place, mostly wrapped in something red.

Flowers and chocolates really do well during this event, but so do restaurants, cinemas, bars, jewellery shops and Amazon! God only knows how many hundreds of millions of items Amazon will be shipping out between now and the 13th - mostly things that will be forgotten within the week.

"Love monetisation day", that's a better name for what's actually happening.

Wait, there's more!

So we have Christmas and Valentines day when people are pressured to buy something out of the ordinary. Now that I'm looking at my calendar at all the "holidays" marked in green, most of them are retail opportunities too.

Easter - A time to take the red ribbons off the unsold Valentine's Day chocolates, and place bunny stickers on them instead.
Mothers' Day - Time to sell more flowers and stuff that didn't move during Valentines day.
Chinese New Year, International Women's Day,.. and on and on.. and that's only up till March!

Here's my favourite one so far: BREXIT DAY!

I wonder what I can sell on that day; T-Shirts? Caps? Marriage offers to people that want to stay in Britain?

If you're curious, someone has beautifully compiled a list here of when and what the retail days are (from the UK point of view).