More Treats, Less Tricks
🚀 What’s happening: Halloween spending this year is about to hit an all time record of $12.2 billion, according to the National Retail Federation. This is almost $2 billion more than people spent in 2022 with the average American expected to shell out about $108 on a mix of costumes, candy, home decor and party supplies.
How did we get here?
Despite Halloween having been around for centuries as one of the oldest traditions in the world, decor and costumes didn’t start popping up until the early 1900s when the holiday revolved mainly around adults hosting parties.
In the 1930s the focus shifted to kids, leading manufacturers to expand to all members of the family. And just like that, an entire industry was born.
Slowly, decorating for the holiday became more mainstream. In 1958, First Lady Mamie Eisenhower decorated the White House for Halloween for the first time, featuring skeletons, jack-o-lanterns, dried corn and pumpkins.
Enter big box retail.
While all the above contributed to the rise of spending around the holiday, the explosion today is due almost entirely to the rise of big box retailers in the 1960s.
As Walmart, the Home Depot, Lowe’s and so on continued to grow in size and scale… the offering of seasonal merchandise — whether it was spring, summer, holidays as well as Halloween — continued to grow right along with it.
These companies realized that Halloween was the bridge of business between summer spending and winter holidays, so they maximized offerings, ad spend, and consumer targeting.
In the past few years alone, Home Depot, Walmart, and Target have more than doubled the amount of products they carry for the holiday (and also started selling earlier and earlier each year).
Where is this all going?
The momentum around Halloween spending is unlikely to slow in the near term and is probably going to expand (in fact, even haunted houses have now grown to become seven figure businesses).
Our guess is that it won’t be too long before travel companies and airlines look to get a piece of the action. Maybe you’ll start seeing more “Halloween inspired” destinations or experience driven events offering spooky fun for the whole family.
👪 Closer to home: Knowing the above, it’s easy to see how families’ wallets are prime targets on Halloween.
Being vigilant and now more aware of what advertisers are trying to do, we can all use this holiday to get a bit smarter about how we spend. While you do, it may also be a great opportunity to teach our kids the value of making good financial decisions in between them stuffing candy in their face.
Here are some tips to help you and your family through the holiday:
