Halloween Stores & Halloween Sales

Alpha8472
Posts: 3929
Joined: February 24th, 2009, 8:55 pm
Been thanked: 79 times
Status: Offline

Halloween Stores & Halloween Sales

Post by Alpha8472 »

There is talk about Halloween Trick Or Treating being banned in some areas. It is currently not banned in California, but it is highly discouraged.

The Halloween stores are not doing well at all. I was in Spirit Halloween and it was completely dead. I thought that it was closed, but in fact it was open until 9 PM with at least 4 or 5 employees. There were also no lights on the exterior of the building, so you could not even tell if the store was open at night Spirit used to rent spotlights to illuminate the facades of their stores. It appears that Spirit has gone the cheap route and will not even pay to light up their store's plastic banner sign.

This building in particular was in a long abandoned Grocery Outlet in Dublin, California that closed a few years ago. The Grocery Outlet never found a new long term tenant. Every year Spirit Halloween opens up here. It is the only time of the year that the building is occupied. Spirit is also planning to open up another store about a block away in an abandoned Orchard Supply Hardware store. Is Spirit over-expanding? Or did Spirit just get a cheap deal on these abandoned buildings and figured that it had nothing to lose. Spirit once was about to take over the abandoned nearby Toys R Us. I am so glad that they did not, because that Toys R Us still has its signs up. At night, the Toys R Us sign lights up and from miles away you can see the classic Toys R Us logo. It is like the store never closed.

There is a Spirit Halloween in a former Pier 1 Imports in Walnut Creek, California. That one looks much nicer with glass windows so that you can see that the store is open for business.

This year may be bad for Halloween sales everywhere. People are not buying decorations or costumes. There could be a tons of clearanced Halloween items in the days after Halloween at Walmart and Target. Does Sears sell Halloween products? Perhaps they did at some point along with toys.
storewanderer
Posts: 14379
Joined: February 23rd, 2009, 3:54 pm
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 298 times
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: Halloween Stores & Halloween Sales

Post by storewanderer »

Spirit carries items over from year to year and mark-ups are so high that I would expect them to just carry stuff over to next year if it does not sell this year. Their expenses are rather low as they do these temporary short term leases on otherwise empty space, no finish work to their stores, limited payroll most of the year, etc. I think Spirit's efforts to procure and make Halloween stuff readily available to adults and not just kids is a big reason why Halloween became so popular with adults over the years and transitioned to an all ages holiday.

Given most Halloween dress up involves masks I would think maybe those gatherings will be okay?
Super S
Posts: 2690
Joined: April 1st, 2009, 9:27 pm
Has thanked: 11 times
Been thanked: 61 times
Status: Offline

Re: Halloween Stores & Halloween Sales

Post by Super S »

Those stores typically are slow when they first open during September and pick up during October as Halloween approaches. I have known several people who have worked for them during the time they are open. I have also seen another store called Halloween City which is very similar in how they operate but I think a different company.
Alpha8472
Posts: 3929
Joined: February 24th, 2009, 8:55 pm
Been thanked: 79 times
Status: Offline

Re: Halloween Stores & Halloween Sales

Post by Alpha8472 »

Halloween City is owned by Party City.

I remember years ago when Spirit Halloween was based in Hayward, California. Their stores took up much more space back then with more merchandise. They really went all out with the decorations. It was like a gigantic free Halloween fun house. These days they only use part of the stores that they temporarily occupy instead of the entire store.
storewanderer
Posts: 14379
Joined: February 23rd, 2009, 3:54 pm
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 298 times
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: Halloween Stores & Halloween Sales

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: September 17th, 2020, 11:31 pm Halloween City is owned by Party City.

I remember years ago when Spirit Halloween was based in Hayward, California. Their stores took up much more space back then with more merchandise. They really went all out with the decorations. It was like a gigantic free Halloween fun house. These days they only use part of the stores that they temporarily occupy instead of the entire store.
I think what Spirit has been able to do is more recently open more locations in each geographical area so each one has less product. This varies by area. In some areas they do still occupy the entire space of whatever they move into.

I went into a Kmart but it had no Halloween anything. Most of summer sold down. But it had some new Christmas merchandise (trees)- unbranded ones in boxes that said online only merchandise and had black and white pieces of paper taped to the boxes showing a picture of what the tree looks like, and the shipping labels on the trees were to some Sears distro in IL. So not Kmart holdovers from last year. Maybe Sears holdovers from last year.
mbz321
Assistant Store Manager
Assistant Store Manager
Posts: 747
Joined: March 11th, 2010, 7:52 pm
Has thanked: 96 times
Been thanked: 54 times
Status: Offline

Re: Halloween Stores & Halloween Sales

Post by mbz321 »

Alpha8472 wrote: September 17th, 2020, 11:31 pm Halloween City is owned by Party City.

Strangely enough, a Halloween City is popping up in a shopping center near me in a former AC Moore store....there is a Party City right at the other end of the plaza!
pseudo3d
Posts: 3851
Joined: November 12th, 2015, 7:01 pm
Has thanked: 5 times
Been thanked: 77 times
Status: Offline

Re: Halloween Stores & Halloween Sales

Post by pseudo3d »

Usually the Halloween stores use half the space, even smaller spaces, so one I visited a few years ago, in effect, used a quarter of a Winn-Dixie store that closed long ago (the Winn-Dixie became a furniture store, and that got subdivided, and the Halloween store used half of the sub-lease's space).

I live in a college town, so the Halloween stores should do okay as far as college stuff goes. The masks would probably go well with some costumes, such as the ever-popular "naughty nurse" costume.
cjd
Assistant Store Manager
Assistant Store Manager
Posts: 624
Joined: August 18th, 2018, 6:54 am
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 6 times
Status: Offline

Re: Halloween Stores & Halloween Sales

Post by cjd »

There used to be a Spirit Halloween store that opened here every year in the former Circuit City. (CC did not make it long, it was built in 2007/08 just before the recession, and it wasn't long after that Circuit City went bankrupt). That store became an Ashley Furniture as of a year or two ago, so the Spirit store has been gone.

BUT, it seems to me they did something different here and the Spirit Halloween store opened up in the seasonal department at Goodwill. I really seem to remember there being a Spirit Halloween banner put up under the Goodwill sign the last couple of years. Did they really partner with Goodwill or am I imagining things?

This year the Halloween department is back once again, but the banner on the front does not appear to mention anything about Spirit stores. It just seems to be a generic Halloween banner that looks similar.

Am I remembering correctly or not? Anyone else seen this?
pseudo3d
Posts: 3851
Joined: November 12th, 2015, 7:01 pm
Has thanked: 5 times
Been thanked: 77 times
Status: Offline

Re: Halloween Stores & Halloween Sales

Post by pseudo3d »

cjd wrote: September 18th, 2020, 7:33 pm There used to be a Spirit Halloween store that opened here every year in the former Circuit City. (CC did not make it long, it was built in 2007/08 just before the recession, and it wasn't long after that Circuit City went bankrupt). That store became an Ashley Furniture as of a year or two ago, so the Spirit store has been gone.

BUT, it seems to me they did something different here and the Spirit Halloween store opened up in the seasonal department at Goodwill. I really seem to remember there being a Spirit Halloween banner put up under the Goodwill sign the last couple of years. Did they really partner with Goodwill or am I imagining things?

This year the Halloween department is back once again, but the banner on the front does not appear to mention anything about Spirit stores. It just seems to be a generic Halloween banner that looks similar.

Am I remembering correctly or not? Anyone else seen this?
I'm not sure about the Goodwill connection, I know Goodwill tends to have a bunch of "franchisees" (for lack of a better word) that do things slightly differently, like how some Goodwill stores will move into a dead retail building but then you have the ones in central Florida with attractive new builds.
Super S
Posts: 2690
Joined: April 1st, 2009, 9:27 pm
Has thanked: 11 times
Been thanked: 61 times
Status: Offline

Re: Halloween Stores & Halloween Sales

Post by Super S »

cjd wrote: September 18th, 2020, 7:33 pm There used to be a Spirit Halloween store that opened here every year in the former Circuit City. (CC did not make it long, it was built in 2007/08 just before the recession, and it wasn't long after that Circuit City went bankrupt). That store became an Ashley Furniture as of a year or two ago, so the Spirit store has been gone.

BUT, it seems to me they did something different here and the Spirit Halloween store opened up in the seasonal department at Goodwill. I really seem to remember there being a Spirit Halloween banner put up under the Goodwill sign the last couple of years. Did they really partner with Goodwill or am I imagining things?

This year the Halloween department is back once again, but the banner on the front does not appear to mention anything about Spirit stores. It just seems to be a generic Halloween banner that looks similar.

Am I remembering correctly or not? Anyone else seen this?
Value Village used to run seasonal Halloween departments in their stores, but I think they were done in-house. It's an idea that makes some sense when you consider that the store already has second hand clothing which can be used for costumes.
Post Reply