Americans will spend $8.4 billion this year in Halloween spending
Valley stores offer lots of options when shopping for Halloween costumes
By GRAIG GRAZIOSI
YOUNGSTOWN
By nearly all measurements, 2016 has been a strange year; Clinton and Trump, the clown menace, a Cleveland sports championship. Lucky for consumers, it’s almost their turn to get in on the weirdness; Halloween is just a week away.
Though not the economic juggernaut that Christmas is, Halloween still draws a strong showing of American consumers. The National Retail Federation – the largest retail association on the planet – estimates that total American consumer spending on Halloween will reach $8.4 billion in 2016.
According to the NRF, this is the most American consumers have spent on Halloween in the survey’s 11-year history. Since 2015, spending has increased by $1.5 billion – the largest single-year gain in the survey’s history.
Ana Serafin Smith, a senior director at the National Retail Federation, attributed the spending increase to overall economic health nationally as well as emerging consumer trends driven by millennial shoppers.
“Halloween allows people to be experimental in the way they decorate and celebrate the holiday,” Smith said. “Millennial consumers are really driving that experimental spending on costumes and decorations, both for themselves and their kids.”
Regardless of how consumers choose to celebrate Halloween, the overwhelming majority of their spending is focused on candy, costumes and decorations. Nearly all of the consumers surveyed by the NRF – 94 percent – said they planned to purchase candy as part of their Halloween shopping. Candy sales will make up nearly 30 percent – approximately $2.6 billion – of all spending on Halloween in 2016, according to estimates from the National Confectioners Association.
Most consumers shopping for Halloween aren’t content to stop at just sweets. Seventy percent plan to spend money on decorations, and 67 percent said costumes for themselves – or their children or pets – were on their shopping lists.
Halloween inspires enough spending that established businesses set up seasonal “pop-up shops” to capitalize on the demand.
Tyler Matthews, an assistant manager at Spirit Halloween in Boardman, said the seasonal store – operated by Spencer’s Gifts – completed hiring staff in late July and by early August the temporary walls of the pop-up shop were ready for products.
One section of wall, from ceiling to floor, is adorned with political costumes and props. Giant foam cutouts of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s heads hang next to rubber masks and novelty toilet paper bearing the face of either of the presidential hopefuls.
“We always see an increase in political costumes during election years,” Brad Butler, a spokesman for Halloween retailer Halloween Express said. “Right now we’re seeing the Trump masks outsell the Hillary mask. Why? Not for me to say.”
Marissa Lindsey, assistant manager of Party Place in Boardman, ventured a guess.
“People love making fun of his masks. It’s a big joke for most of the people I see buying them,” Lindsey said.
Matthews confirmed that some shoppers prefer to buy the mask of the candidate they oppose, often in conjunction with other bits of a costume.
He recalled one mother who bought her child a Clinton mask and paired it with an orange prison jumpsuit, In another instance, a father combined a Trump mask with the iconic purple and green tuxedo of Batman’s arch-nemesis and general lover of chaos the Joker.
On the topic of clowns and chaos, the hysteria generated from the now-international sightings of menacing clowns stalking through the woods and threatening children have had a major impact on costume sales in 2016.
According to Butler, Halloween Express’ sale of clown masks has increased 239 percent since last year. Of Halloween Express’s top selling clown masks, nearly 70 percent are of the “evil” variety, where they only made up 52 percent of the masks sold last year.
One mask – a green-haired clown with grey skin, a bright-red nose, and a grin revealing long, pointed teeth – has outsold all the other clown masks 3-to-1.
“I don’t know why the sales are so high, the clown sighting thing is made up mostly in my view,” Butler said.
Judging by his sales numbers, if clown sightings were fake before, they’ll likely be real come Halloween.
Fear not, though; despite some shoppers’ desire to portray the terror of evil clowns and presidential candidates, consumers have overwhelmingly decided that 2016 will be the year of the superhero.
According to NRF survey data, superhero costumes have outsold all other type of costume in 2016. Princess costumes ruled the market for the last 11 years, according to the data, but an increase in superhero popularity in both adults and children has dethroned the pink monarchs.
According to both Matthews and Lindsey, costumes related to the DC Comics’ Suicide Squad film are driving sales this year, with one costume particularly in demand.
“Harley Quinn from Suicide Squad is so insanely popular right now that if I took a back order for everyone who called in asking about the costume I wouldn’t be able to fill them for a year,” Matthews said.
The DC villains aren’t the only ones moving merchandise. According to Matthews, family superhero costumes – like Batman, Robin and Batgirl – are selling well with families, and children are again flocking to Marvel’s Spider-Man after his appearance in the Marvel film “Captain America: Civil War.”
According to the NRF, 171 million Americans will celebrate Halloween in 2016, with the average consumer spending $82.93. Whether they’re dressing as killer clowns, mocking their least-favorite presidential candidate or handing out candy to kids, one thing is certain; Americans are spending money to get spooky.