It’s no ghost town for retailers this Halloween season.
Halloween retail shopping is expected to reach $8 billion this year, according to the National Retail Federation’s consumer-spending survey conducted by BIGinsight. About 170 million people are planning to celebrate, the most in the survey’s 10-year history.
The survey findings indicate that 45 percent of consumers plan to dress up. The net average amount spent on costumes this year is slightly up from 2011, at $28.65 compared with $26.52, and the total is expected to reach $2.87 billion.
When it comes to choosing a costume, consumers say they look to print media (19.3 percent), online search (33.3 percent) and costume/retail stores, (35.7 percent), among other sources. Social media play a role for many, with Facebook (15.2 percent), as well as Pinterest (7.1 percent) helping to inspire their festive outlook this season.
Kathy Grannis, senior director of media relations at the NRF notes, “Social media in general [have] changed how people plan to shop. Pinterest specifically allows those celebrating Halloween to get costume inspiration and home decorating ideas and more.”
Though consumers are celebrating, they aren’t overindulging. In fact, they’re being more cautious. “Although the amount of orders was up significantly, the amount spent per costume order this year [to date] was down 4 percent as shoppers looked for bargains,” explains Sarah Chamberlain, director of marketing at Yandy.com Costumes.
In NRF’s survey, 25.9 percent of respondents note that the state of the US economy will affect their Halloween plans. Eighty-three percent said they’ll spend less overall because of it.
For Spirit Halloween, which has almost 1,000 retail locations nationwide and in Canada, popular trends this year include heroes like Spiderman, Batman and The Avengers, as well as characters from the Hunger Games — and President Obama.
Spirit Halloween said it has correctly predicted the winners of the past four presidential elections simply based on mask sales for each candidate. Leading into the last debate, Obama mask sales were at 65 percent versus 35 percent for Romney’s. Now Obama is at 60 percent of election-mask sales — the same as in the 2008 election — and Romney is at 40.