Chicago Costume was crowded the Friday before Halloween.
By Ed Avis
Well, you can all take a deep breath now. Halloween is over! Based on an NCA survey of retailers and suppliers, it looks like it was a decent – though not record-breaking – Halloween.
How Were Sales?
Twenty-three costume retailers, of which 16 are NCA members, replied to our survey, which was taken the day after Halloween. In the vital category of costume sales, the results were mixed, but skewed toward the positive: 23 percent said sales were much better than last year; 23 percent sales were somewhat better; 18 percent said sales were about the same; 18 percent said sales were somewhat worse; and 18 percent said sales were much worse.
Costume rentals did better. Only 16 of the respondents offer costume rentals, and 31 percent of them said rentals were much better than last year. The same number said rentals were somewhat better, and 13 percent said they were about the same. The remaining 25 percent (four respondents) said rentals were much worse.
Sales of accessories and make-up also were uneven this year. Twenty-nine percent said sales of accessories and make-up were much better this year; 14 percent said somewhat better; and 24 percent said they were the same. The remaining respondents were about evenly spread between somewhat worse and much worse.
Finally, in the category of décor sales, the results were rather bleak. This should not be surprising, since last year was still somewhat of a COVID year, when decorating was a great way to safely celebrate. The pressure was off this year, and that shows up in the data: Of the 15 retailers who said they sold décor, none reported “much better” sales and only one said sales were somewhat better. The majority – eight – said sales were about the same, and three each said sales were somewhat worse or much worse.
In Their Own Words
An open-ended question asked “Overall, were you pleased with Halloween this year? Why or why not?” Replies to that question were interesting (if there is no name after the response, it means the respondent did not provide their name):
“We had a great turn-out all month long. In fact, we started renting costumes for Halloween back in August. I'd estimate we were up 10-15% over last year.” Larry Docktor, Broadway Costume & Theatrical Supply
“Halloween 2022 smashed all records of my 26 years in business. We are in Melbourne, Australia and Halloween fell on the eve of a public holiday. I had queues that stretched along the street! Couldn’t get enough stock. All of my suppliers ran out of the most popular items.” Margaret Curry, Masquerade Costumes
“Considering the inflation that is going on we are pleased with the end result. Next year depending on the end result of the election who knows what will take place. As time goes on we might have to have a smaller budget just to be safe. Only time will tell.” Gayle Vaartjes, The Kostume Room
“Yes, this was our first year in business and Halloween drove our advertising helping with awareness of our store. People were excited. At the same time, many people were concerned with prices and wanted to purchase more than what they did, but were sticking to a budget.”
“Overall sales down 10% from last year during the month of October. Disappointed. Instead of 10 days of crazy all day sales was 6 days of crazy all day sales. Needed less seasonal help for sure. Scary stuff did not do well, makeup products did not do well.”
“This Halloween was terrible. Spirit Halloween, Halloween City, and Party City all moved in within 1/4th mile from us and dominated the market.” Brandon Lilly, Life of the Party
How Was Halloween for Vendors?
The survey had a special set of questions for vendors, and eight vendors replied to them. From their perspective, sales were apparently great. Three of them reported that sales were much better than last year, and the remaining five said sales were better. Nobody reported flat or down sales.
Kelli Borel Reidmiller, the wholesale manager of NCA Vendor Member elope, told me in an interview unrelated to the survey that elope had a record-breaking Halloween season. In a follow-up email, she wrote: “Still going strong! elope, now the wholesales division of FUN.com, is experiencing 40% growth this year. Even though we were not able to exhibit at the Halloween and Party Expo due to COVID, our sales are growing for a variety of reasons. The main reason is our renewed focus on development. We had over 250 new items for 2022 and already have another 250 developed for 2023.”
Supply chain issues have plagued the industry for the past couple of years, so we also asked a question – to both vendors and retailers – about deliveries of products. The vendors replied that they delivered nearly everything people ordered – one of them said they fulfilled every single order, and the remaining seven said they filled between 90 and 99 percent. Pretty darn good!
But the picture changed when retailers were asked how much of what they ordered was delivered. About 13 percent of them said they received everything they ordered; 43 percent said they received between 75 percent and 95 percent of what they ordered; and 35 percent received 50 to 74 percent. Two respondents (about 9 percent) said they received less than half of what they ordered.
Just to be clear, there is not necessarily a discrepency between what the vendors said they delivered and what retailers received – we made no attempt to match the suppliers to the retailers, so the retailers could have ordered stuff from an entirely different set of suppliers than those who replied to our survey.
How did the numbers compare to last year, when the supply chain was in truly bad shape? There really wasn’t much difference. In last year’s survey, the numbers were as follows: 19 percent received everything they ordered; 30 percent received 75-95 percent; 37 percent received 50-74 percent; and 15 percent received less than half. So if you were hoping that the supply chain was getting a lot better, you’re probably disappointed.
What NCA Concepts Did You Use?
Another question in our survey probed NCA members’ use of one or both of our Halloween-related benefits – the Halloween for All program (which encouraged members to better serve customers with disabilities) and our emails about last-minute promotions from Vendor Members.
It was great to see that 65 percent of our members who responded to the survey read the Halloween for All booklet, and even more important, 54 percent said, “Yes, I took some action to better serve customers with disabilities based on the ideas in the booklet or webinar.” Look for a follow-up article in the coming months about what our members did in that regard.
As far as the offers from Vendor Members, that program also succeeded, according to the survey. Forty-seven percent of our members who responded said they read those emails and ordered something. Good news!
As we move into the post-Halloween period, naturally we can’t rest for long. Vendors want orders placed sooner than ever these days, and the NCA is beta-testing a program to bundle orders in order to maximize quantity discounts and improve shipping times. Stay tuned for more details on that program soon.