A little romance, a lot more pricey

Love birds are snapping up rose bouquets priced as high as 1,000 yuan ($165) each to welcome Valentine's Day on Friday, the time of year where flower vendors across the nation stand to make tens of millions of yuan.

The Global Times contacted shops ranging from humble online stores to luxury rose sellers on Thursday. All said their products sold out early this week.

"The latest delivery for roses that a customer can book now is February 15," said a customer service staff member at a Taobao flower shop called Lizhishang which sells rose bouquets from 283 yuan to 700 yuan in seven major cities.

"All of our delivery slots in Shanghai and Beijing were booked out Wednesday."

Even drastic increases in the prices of roses did not dampen consumer passion to purchase the symbol of romance.

A bouquet of 33 red roses grown in Southwest China's Yunnan Province, for -example, sells on taobao.com for about 470 yuan for this Valentine's Day, up nearly 30 percent on last year.

The price surge is even more obvious on the wholesale market. A Beijing resident who plans to propose to his girlfriend on February 14 told the Global Times he bought 99 blue roses at 20 yuan each at Xiaoyun-qiao Flora Market in Beijing Thursday morning.

"It's so much more expensive. I bought the same flower for 10 yuan each last Valentine's Day," said the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Blue roses sell for several yuan on a normal day.

Chinese consumers grow increasingly generous with pricey products and services that satisfy their emotional and spiritual needs such as flowers and overseas vacations, Fu Zhiyong, managing director of ACME Consulting in Beijing, told the Global Times Thursday.

"As consumers get more sophisticated and accumulate disposable income, they will definitely switch their buying preference for basic food and transport to those things that satisfy them emotionally," Fu said.

A young man from Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang Province, proposed to his girlfriend with 999 roses made out of 100-yuan bills Tuesday, news portal ifeng.com -reported Wednesday. He spent nearly 200,000 yuan making the cash bouquet, the report said, as Chinese consumers reportedly correlate the price of a gift with the depth of true love.

Fondness for the number 999 derives from the popularity of the song 999 Roses by a Taiwan singer that includes the lyric, "I planted 999 roses for you a long time ago."

Beijing high-end flower shop Roseonly sold 20,000 orders for its special Valentine's Day products including the 999-yuan "The One" gift set that contains one Ecuadorian rose, a box of chocolates, a moss-made bear doll and an "only love certificate" decorated with Swarovski crystals.

"Valentine's Day will bring us daily revenue of much more than 10 million yuan, which is as high as our monthly sales in the rest of the year," Perry Pu, the company's CEO, told the Global Times Thursday.

The company sold 99 boxes containing a dozen roses at 999 yuan last Valentine's Day, Pu said.

Although flower sellers bag big revenues at Valentine's day, their net profits might not be as rosy.

Guo Yingzhou, owner of Beijing-based Garden Güell Floral Studio, told the Global Times Thursday that the purchase price of domestically grown red roses doubled this year as flower planters aimed to cash in on Valentine's Day after the unusually cold weather in Yunnan.

Pu said the cost of Roseonly's Ecuadorian roses doubled due to the volcanic eruption in Ecuador in early February.

Chinese consumers will spend more on meeting their emotional demands in future and companies will need to innovate on their offerings, Fu said.

Roseonly has started integrating more luxury into their roses, Pu said, adding that the company is in talks with Victoria's Secret on launching a line of pajamas for couples. The company is also communicating with Tiffany & Co about establishing fashion accessories.