Image: Grandin Road
by Sarah Mahoney@mahoney_sarah
Source: www.mediapost.com, September 2024
American consumers are expected to spend $11.6 billion on Halloween in the coming weeks, buying costumes, décor and candy. That represents a decline of 5% from last year’s $12.2 billion, according to the National Retail Federation.
That works out to an average of about $104 on a per-person basis. Celebrants are also doing their shopping earlier than usual, with 47% of survey participants saying they’ll begin shopping before October, up from 37% five years ago and 32% in 2014.
The main reason these early birds are shopping? It simply makes them happy. Forty-eight percent say they do so because they look forward to the fall, and 37% because Halloween is one of their favorite holidays.
Younger shoppers, between 25 and 34, are primarily driving this trend, with 56% saying they shop before the calendar turns to October.
The NRF, which runs the annual survey with Prosper Insights & Analytics, finds that 72% of consumers plan to celebrate Halloween this year. Most (67%) intend to hand out candy, which translates to $3.5 billion in sales, and decorate their home or yard (52%), spending roughly $3.8 billion.
Almost half say they will dress up in a costume, generating another $3.8 billion, while 43% plan on carving a pumpkin and 29% will either throw or attend a party.
While there’s no word yet on how many people will wear either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris masks, respondents say they’ve got plenty of respect for the predictable. People plan to spend $1.8 billion on adult costumes, with 5.8 million saying they plan on dressing up as a witch, 3 million as a vampire, 1.6 million as a cat, 1.5 million as Batman, and 1.4 million as a pirate.
For children’s costumes, likely to generate $1.3 billion in sales, Spider-Man is tops at 2.6 million, followed by ghosts (named by 1.8 million), princesses (1.7 million), and witches (1.6 million). Parents say another 1.5 million kids are opting for the more generic “favorite superhero.”
And people will spend $700 million on costumes for their pets, with pumpkins, hot dogs, bumblebees and bats leading the list.
