Valentine’s Day is big business, as retailers strive to satisfy the libidos of Americans through the purchase of pleasures in taste, smell, and texture.

Just how big, as measured by dollars spent, can be seen in the data:

Sure, fancy jewelry and going out on the town are plenty popular, but the traditional gifts of chocolate, roses, and lingerie — at about $2 billion each in holiday spending — outspend those options in the aggregate at $6 billion. And the popularity of spending at least something on the holiday is quite high:

But what if you could convince these romantic shoppers to sign up for gifts of ardor every month? And in fact, many do.

Financial services provider Deloitte found that 7% of those polled intend to buy subscription boxes as holiday gifts; of that 7%, 25% were thinking about gourmet food and snacks, 23% were thinking about clothing or shoes, and 18% were thinking of flowers.

(Source: Deloitte’s 2016 Annual Holiday Survey, page 23)

Another poll, by Vantiv courtesy of Statista, pegged the market at 9% of consumers for clothing boxes, 7% for food, and did not report on flowers. Bottom line: the great majority of consumers are not even thinking about giving subscription boxes as holiday gifts. Depending on your outlook, companies making these offerings either have a long way to go OR have a huge opportunity to tap that $6 billion in Valentine spending on flowers, candy, and undies.

FLOWERS

Flower subscriptions are a venerable tradition, thanks to pre-Internet services such as flower-of-the-month clubs such as that offered by Harry and David’s, now owned by 1-800-Flowers. Although flowers may be a venerable subscription option, a number of new companies have been entering the growing market.

Unable to resist the puns, the Financial Times wrote “Scent by post: why flower subscription services are blooming.” If you can get past that headline, Jenny Lee points out that the trend for flower subscriptions is growing all over the world.

• Ordering repeat deliveries of fresh-cut flowers may once have felt as decadent as Cleopatra demanding her bed of rose petals be refreshed incessantly by slaves; it is now an increasingly widespread proposition. … In the US a handful of flower subscription services are aligning themselves with the farm-to-table movement. “We only work with sustainable farms,” says John Tabis, chief executive of The Bouqs Company, which he launched from his sofa in Venice Beach, California, in 2012.

(Speaking of The Bouqs, TechCrunch reported last year that the company was not only well funded by venture capital but also turning a profit.)

FT’s Jenny Lee also has two theories for the new upswing in the industry: better prices and showing off on social media:

• Why are people increasingly using such subscription services? One draw, according to Bromberg Hawkings, is that they can offer better value. “People don’t feel they can justify buying themselves flowers from the florist every week; unless you’re extremely wealthy it’s a prohibitively expensive luxury.” Strange points to the influence of social media. “On Pinterest and Instagram flowers have a cult following,” she says. “If one aspires to a certain lifestyle, flowers are a visual part of that.”

BloomsyBox is another flower box company that has gotten some good press, in the Miami Herald, Ladders, SuperFloral, and RealSimple. Last year the company signed a deal with Costco. According to Nancy Dahlberg at the Herald, BloomsyBox gets a lot of mileage from customers who enjoy the delightful surprise of discovering new varieties every month.

I’ll pass without further comment on the Herald’s “Startup Idea Takes Root” headline.

CANDY

I recently wrote a column on meal-kit subscription boxes, but the adjacent market for snack and sweets boxes does not face nearly as many challenges. Delivering treats is not as hard as delivering fresh food and raw meat! So as you might guess, there are a large number of snacking subscription companies out there. Here are six for a general audience; here are four more for students; here are six more with a Latino theme; of course, there are five vegan options; and many more.

But Valentine’s Day is really all about chocolate, according to Smithsonian Magazine and candy lovers everywhere. And by everywhere, I mean these seven chocolate-themed subscription boxes, these seven more, these 11 from England, and then there are these 26 candy boxes. You can go high-end with Godiva and low-end with Oreo.

Honestly, if the whole subscription box fad has any legs to it, surely sending chocolate to your house every month has got to be a winning proposition. That’s just my opinion, but come on.

LINGERIE

But what to get that special someone? Among most men, the age-old battle of boxers vs briefs continues with no real winner … except for Millennial guys, who overwhelmingly prefer boxers. Among ladies, there is no clear preference, though older ladies prefer briefs, and younger ones, bikinis.

Emma McGowan at Bustle says that lingerie and other romantic products are the perfect way to celebrate Valentine’s Day during every season:

• I love Valentine’s Day so much that I’ve come up with the perfect rebuttal for the “why do we have only one day” whiners: Sexy subscription boxes. With some of these bad boys, you can take the romantic and sexual energy of Valentine’s Day and extend it over an entire year if you want.

As for particular providers, alas, I have no data on specific companies. However, if advertising spend and media coverage is any hint, a clear market leader in this area is MeUndies.com. The company has been written up in Fast Company, WWD, Business Insider, and CBC Radio. The company actually markets its product primarily on comfort and quality — and there’s something to that, if the large number of paid and unpaid endorsements littering the Internet are any indication. This one, from Tom Vellner at BuzzFeed, is not atypical:

• “Softer-than-soft” is a pretty ~ballsy~ claim, so I decided to investigate. For my detective work, I bought a pair of each of MeUndies’ signature men’s styles: boxer briefs, trunks, boxers, and briefs. … Here’s what I found. They’re actually SO freakin’ comfy.

Side note: Mr. Vellner also seemed to enjoy modeling his MeUndies a little more than somewhat.

At Forbes, Meggen Taylor interviewed MeUndies founder Jonathan Shokrian, who had this to say about selling underwear via subscription.

• “The subscription model works really well for underwear because people tend to have more underwear than any other article of clothing. It’s something that we replenish frequently, though many of us avoid this due to the unenjoyable shopping experience. We also found that people didn’t have a strong brand affinity with any underwear brands and saw a huge opportunity for disruption,” shares Shokrian.

Aside from a Singapore-based firm, I found no other undies-for-men options; I must note that in our gendered society, there are many many more subscription underwear boxes for the ladies than for the gents. I found ten without trying hard, from Adore Me to Yandy.com.

But quantity is no promise of quality —  not all pundits see the value proposition or think that an underwear subscription service is a viable business model. MarketWatch’s Therese Poletti, writing about lingerie box company UnderClub, says that she found the equivalent product cheaper on Amazon.

• These granular, tightly focused startups don’t seem to offer much and appear to have little chance of surviving. … A competitive advantage is not clear, except that it ships a personalized package as if customers are receiving an unexpected gift.

To be fair, Poletti wrote that in August 2015, and the company is still in business two and a half years later. So far, the subscription box “bubble” has not popped.

Insider Take

On Valentine’s Day and on the other 364 days of the year, people love luxuries. Combine those luxuries with romance, and you’ve got a recipe for success. Selling guilty pleasures — flowers, candy, and unmentionables — via discreet shipment right to the home every month is a subscription box offering that is proving its popularity.