Brazil Valentine’s Day shoppers plan to spend more on chocolates and sweets
Bus-terminal shoppers planned to spend R$392 on Dia dos Namorados gifts, with chocolates and sweets ahead of flowers, fashion and electronics.
Passengers moving through 40 urban bus terminals said they planned to spend an average of R$392 on Dia dos Namorados gifts, a sign that Brazil’s last-minute romance buying was still leaning toward portable, easy-to-carry presents. In the RZK Digital survey of 9,245 people, chocolates and sweets led the wish list at 20%, followed by cosmetics and perfumes at 18%, flowers at 16%, fashion and shoes at 15% and electronics and cellphones at 10%.
The same shoppers were also clear about how they wanted to celebrate. Restaurants came first at 21%, ahead of cinema and theater at 15% and trips or travel at 13%, which helps explain why the strongest gifts in transit are the ones that can be bought quickly, carried on a bus and understood immediately as romantic. RZK Digital said more than 82% of this audience passes through the same terminal on the way out and back on the same day, making the platform especially visible to hurried buyers with repeat exposure to the same screens.
That reach is not small. RZK Digital said it has more than 900 screens across terminals in São Paulo, Recife and Brasília, and that those locations receive more than 100 million monthly visits. The company said the survey was gathered through free Wi-Fi login, anonymously and in compliance with Brazil’s LGPD, with RZK Insights conducting the research at a 99% confidence level and a 1.6% margin of error.
The spending picture is bigger than one terminal network. A separate 2026 survey by Instituto Locomotiva and QuestionPro found that 91% of people in relationships intended to give gifts for Dia dos Namorados, or about 114 million people, and that 75% had not yet bought the present. That same study put clothing and accessories at the top of the broader gift market, with chocolates, cosmetics, gourmet baskets, shoes and flowers also prominent, while 37% planned to dine out.
CNDL and SPC Brasil projected R$26.4 billion in sales for the date, with 100.1 million consumers shopping and a median spend of R$264 per buyer. In that context, the bus-terminal figure stands out: chocolate still dominates the impulse lane, but R$392 suggests many shoppers are reaching beyond a box of sweets toward gifts that feel more deliberate, even if they are still easy to hand over between stops.
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