'Goblin' up sales
this halloween
Will your registers be screaming with sales or sit eerily
quiet this September and October? Stores with little or no Halloween merchandise
can use October to prepare for the Christmas craziness. But other retailers
look forward to the busy Halloween season all year.
For retailers who specialize in holiday and seasonal merchandise,
the Halloween season is second only to Christmas in terms of sales.
 “Every
year, it seems, there’s a news story about Halloween being a surprisingly
big retail season, as if it’s something new,” said John McIntire,
owner of Gags & Gifts, a chain of party supply stores “Actually,
it’s been that way for many years.”
Each September for the past 15 years, McIntire has transformed
his Gags & Gifts stores into Halloween USA and opened additional locations
to handle all the Halloween business. Gags & Gifts (which will soon
change its name to Party USA) has been in business since 1981, and Halloween
has been huge for at least that long, according to McIntire.
At the Jo-Ann Superstore in Flint, manager Vicky Boger
asserts that Halloween is even bigger than Christmas.
“It’s our number-one busiest time of year,”
Boger said. That may be due to Jo-Ann’s merchandise mix, which includes
costumes, crafts, home decor, Halloween-themed baking supplies, candy
and toys, as well as the fabric and trims for those home-made costumes
still favored by creative types.
After an understandable slump in Halloween sales after
9/11 in 2001, most retailers who sell Halloween merchandise say they expect
sales this year to be back to their previously high levels.
“Right after 9/11, some items did fall off. Children’s
costumes still sold well, but there were certainly fewer parties, less
decorating,” said McIntire.
He said his business came back a bit, but not fully, in
2002, and last year it was just about back to the level he saw before
9/11.
Patrick Lynch, of Lynch’s Theatrical Supplies—a
Dearborn-based, family-owned business with additional locations in Livonia
and Warren—says sales decreased in 2001 and have been somewhat depressed,
in part due to more stores carrying Halloween merchandise, but he expects
this year to be better.
Others agree the outlook for 2004 is good—in part
because of the timing of the holiday, which falls on Sunday this year.
“That’s much better than the Friday we had in
2003. There will be lots of parties on all three weekend evenings,”
said McIntire.
With lackluster sales for the past few Christmas seasons,
some might be concerned that growth in Halloween sales might slow down
as well, having reached saturation.
“There’s no reason it should level off, because
there are so many marketable aspects of Halloween,” asserted McIntire.
“There’s always been the costumes, candy and parties, but there’s
a lot of growth in outdoor and indoor decorations—even cars are decked
out for Halloween now.
“Also, some kids these days are getting two costumes—one
for a school party and one for trick-or-treating. Of course, we have no
problem with that idea!”
 Janet
Grant, an employee at Lynch’s, has noticed an increase in adult parties,
both at Halloween and all year. “Theme parties are popular—people
are renting or buying costumes for a gangster party or a Wizard of Oz
theme party,” she said.
David and Goliath
How do specialty retail stores differentiate themselves from the mass
merchandisers, which also stock Halloween merchandise heavily?
Halloween USA specializes in adult costumes and the accessories
that make any costume more memorable.
“Adults want something more unique than what they
can get in the mass merchandise stores, which do about 80-90 percent of
their sales in children’s items,” said McIntire. “We do
about 50:50 kids to adults.”
“Even those who sew or make their costumes often
come to a store like ours for that perfect accessory that ‘clinches’
it—the perfect axe or wig. The mass merchandisers don’t carry
as much volume or variety as we have.”
“Young adults especially want to outdo their friends
at parties, and the last thing they want is to be in a costume someone
else is wearing.
Younger kids, they’ll all be Spiderman or Barbie
and don’t care if there are hundreds of others out there.”
Lynch’s, too, caters to those looking for the unique
or offbeat. Because it both sells and rents costumes, Lynch’s tends
to get people who “think outside the box” at Halloween.
“We’re more family-oriented than some of the
mass merchandisers. Because we cater to school and church plays, we have
costumes like ‘prairie girl’ or ‘George Washington’
that you won’t see at a Wal-Mart,” said Lynch.
While Lynch’s certainly carries the scary or gory
costumes as well, there’s an increased demand for the “cleaner”
costumes, partly because schools have begun to ban scary or gory costumes
at school functions, Lynch noted.
Jo-Ann and other fabric and craft stores appeal to a slightly
different crowd. Moms who are at the store for home decor or fabric will
see the Halloween items and get some creative ideas. By putting items
out earlier than either specialty stores or mass merchandisers, these
stores will get early-bird Halloween shoppers.
A shopper at the Jo-Ann in Lansing, buying costumes in
August for her grandchildren, said she’ll be too busy later in the
season, so she’s getting it done early. “Plus, the kids are
already excited about it,” she added.
According to Boger, along with a large stock of decorations
and children’s costumes, craft stores have greater variety in trims
and craft items, so those who want to make or finish off a costume with
their own ideas have more success at a craft store than a mass merchandiser.
Ready, set, go
Just when to put out Halloween merchandise depends on several factors.
Gags & Gifts doesn’t convert to Halloween USA until after Labor
Day.
“We used to make the switch earlier, but we found
that most people still don’t shop for Halloween before Labor Day,
and half the sales still come in the last two weeks,” said McIntire.
“We don’t want to hurt sales of our non-Halloween
lines—our party supplies, novelties and gifts. We’ve found the
trade-off isn’t worth it until after Labor Day.”
Jo-Ann Superstore in Flint, however, puts out its costumes
and Halloween products in July, in part because of the Renaissance Festival
held in nearby Holly, which runs from mid-August through September.
Most other craft stores or other locations of Jo-Ann’s
tend to put merchandise out by mid-August. People who are making their
own costumes or decor want to start earlier than those buying a costume
do.
Lynch’s starts putting its Halloween stock out in
late July, although more stock comes in throughout the season. Since much
of its business comes from costumes anyway, the shift does not require
the loss of much shelf space for non-Halloween items.
Its other big sales category is dance gear, but that’s
counter-seasonal—more likely to sell in the spring than the fall.
“When we get Halloween stock in, we can’t reorder,
so we urge people both online and in the store to shop early to find what
they want. Every year, people are disappointed to discover items are sold
out,” said Grant.
Both Lynch’s and Halloween USA have websites and
both do a brisk online business. Halloween USA can get its webstore (www.halloweenusa.com)
up and running more easily than converting its physical stores, so the
website puts its new stock up much earlier than the bricks-and-mortar
stores convert.
McIntire noted that one reason Halloween is a big season
is that it overlaps somewhat with the back-to-school season. Although
back-to-school shopping might start in July or August, for many shoppers
it continues through September and even October.
Whether it’s back-to-school apparel and school supplies
or Halloween candy, costumes and decor, many shoppers are spending in
late summer and fall.
Why is Halloween so big? What makes it such a popular
holiday for both children and adults?
“It’s the mystique of the masquerade. You can
put on a mask and be somebody else for a while,” said Grant. “Halloween
lends itself to getting out of your routine, outside yourself, like no
other holiday.“
|
