Denise DiCarlo with her favorite prop, Swinging Skeleton Boy
By Ed Avis
In 2015, David DiCarlo told his wife that he was quitting his job to sell Halloween masks full time. She wasn’t too keen on the idea.
“My wife thought I was crazy actually,” says DiCarlo, whose business, My Halloween Props in Owings Mills, Maryland, became an NCA member last month. “She says, ‘So wait a minute, you're leaving the banking industry and you’re going to do what?’ I could read her mind. We've been together for a long time and I know what she thought.”
DiCarlo had become fascinated with the Halloween industry three years prior, when a friend gave him a mummy animated prop. He started collecting Halloween items and eventually selling them on eBay. By 2015 he was hooked on the thrill and decided to make it his profession.
“I remember saying to my wife, ‘There’ll be a day if I hit a certain number, you can leave your job and you can come aboard and you don’t have to go back to work or anything.’”
That day arrived in 2019, and for the last five years DiCarlo and his wife Denise, who previously was a social worker, have worked together in the business. They rent a 1,600-square-foot warehouse in Owings Mills from which they sell products online and to occasional walk-in customers.
Turning Points
DiCarlo remembers that a key point in the history of his business was a phone conversation he had with Scott Morris of Morris Costumes. DiCarlo was still in his collector phase and noticed that a lot of items were coming from Charlotte, North Carolina. He did some research and realized that the items had that origin because they were coming from Morris Costumes.
“I called down there, had a real good conversation,” DiCarlo remembers. “Scott Morris himself picked up the phone, and he said, ‘Here’s my website,’ and he directed me how to get an EIN number. And the rest is history with that. I mean the stars lined up between him and I.”
Another turning point was when he discovered Trick or Treat Studios. He had done a google search for Michael Myers animated props and learned Trick or Treat carried one. He called to order it and was introduced to their whole line of masks.
“I said, ‘Holy Cow!’ They made my childhood dreams come true,” DiCarlo says. “You can get a Captain Kirk mask, you can get a Michael Myers maks, you can get a Frankenstein mask.”
DiCarlo started stocking the Trick or Treat Studios Michael Myers mask from Halloween 6 before the competition and it sold remarkably well.
“I was selling it like you drink water,” he recalls. “It was just flying off my shelf. It was great.”
Better Packaging
There is a lot of competition in the mask business, so DiCarlo differentiates his business by recognizing that mask collectors – who are his prime customers – want to receive their masks in perfect condition.
He removes every mask from the plastic bag it comes in, blasts it with a hot blow dryer to ensure that the latex looks perfect, and combs the hair. If the mask needs to be shipped, he surrounds it with bubble wrap and pieces of cardboard and puts the mask in a box – never a bag – to prevent damage in shipment.
“When they get it, they get it pristine. There’s nothing wrong.”
Needless to say, that close attention to detail has earned DiCarlo a lot of repeat customers: “They’re happy and we’re happy,” he says.
Welcome to the NCA, David and Denise!