Hair-Raising Halloween Statistics For Small Business Owners

October isn’t just the spookiest month of the year. It’s also the start of the final quarter of the year for many businesses and the official mark for retailers when the holiday season spike begins to happen. While the spooky season only lasts a month, several industries rely solely on sales in October to operate their business and there are a lot more businesses that have jumped on the Halloween business as the holiday has grown in popularity. Since 2005, Halloween spending has more than tripled and ballooned to $9 billion annual sales. And there are more than just candy and costume shops making the dough. As we approach Halloween, HJR Global has put together an in depth look at some of the most hair-raising halloween statistics for small business owners to sink their teeth into. Whether these numbers and facts are a trick or treat is up to you.

Halloween By The Numbers

Every year, the Halloween statistics get rolled out just before the month culminates in that one sugary evening and every year the numbers get even more startling. Here are some of the most interesting facts that the HJR Global team could find:

• There are more than 175 million people that plan to celebrate Halloween in the U.S.
• 41.1 million of those people are potential trick-or-treaters.
• Candy sales keep going up, averaging more than $2.7 billion annually since 2017.
• The average amount that most Americans will spend is anywhere from $87 to $185 on their Halloween festivities.

Perhaps the strangest and most staggering halloween statistic indicates that more than 20% of adults will purchase a costume for their pet, while only 46% of adults indicate they will also dress up. That’s a lot of doggy costumes per capita!

What does this mean for you as a small business owner? If you work within the right sector or your mindful enough during this time period, you can make a lot of dough (or lose a lot) depending upon your setup.

Pop Up Retail

Pop up and temporary retail spaces are not new concepts, but halloween super stores like Spirit Halloween and other stores have put the concept on steroids. Spirit Halloween stores have a rather simple and fairly easy-to-meet standards for consignment. Along with Halloween City and other mom-and-pop operations, the temporary retailer opens more than 1200 stores across the U.S. and Canada for just two short months every year. Why do they continue to grow in popularity? According to these frightening Halloween statistics, the Party City subsidiary, Halloween City (which is the underdog of the Halloween pop up game) generates more than 60 million dollars per year with only 300 stores open across the nation. The risk is high in assuming the responsibility, but the reward for those that take on this opportunity could be in hundreds of thousands range, although a bad location or poor sales of the product could also generate a heart stopping bill as well.

E-Commerce Take Over

Jeff Bezos created a monster with power he didn’t anticipate when he created the shipping company Amazon. Whether you use Amazon all the time or never use it at all, it has reshaped how we operate, shop and even entertain ourselves. While retailers that have failed to adapt to the E-commerce model are leaving husks that get filled up with pop-up stores like Spirit Halloween, the retailers online are having to find a way to compete with the Amazon juggernaut. Interestingly, many discount online suppliers of costumes and decorations still find a windfall at the start of the season, pulling the most traffic around August and September, while Amazon’s sales spike within the last 15 days before Halloween because of procrastinating shoppers and the Amazon prime advantage. Whatever the case may be, Halloween statistics demonstrate that traffic for online retailers with seasonal items spike during the months of September and October.

How Small Business Owners Can Cash In

So how can you, as a small business owner, use this information effectively? It all comes back to the Halloween statistics. What used to be a kids holiday has now become a nationwide event as popular as any of the other bank holidays, if not more so. Nearly 50% of adults will put on a costume, while 71% will hand out candy on the evening of Halloweeen. More than 50% of people decorate for the Holiday. 23% will attend a haunted house or an escape room to get into the spirit. The Halloween box office raked in more than $750 billion in 2018. While some businesses, such as haunted houses, costume makers or prop designers might rely solely on the Halloween season for their sales, any enterprising small business owner might be able to cash in on the spooky season. For example, do you operate a landscaping or snow removal service? For Halloween you could also have a decoration service for a fee. The smart entrepreneur is the one that finds a problem to be solved and solves it in a creative way.

How you use this set of Halloween statistics is up to you and ultimately based on on your business, but even if you aren’t going to start manufacturing fake headstones, it’s always a good idea to examine new opportunities to grow your portfolio. Do you have a cool idea for a Halloween themed business? Find us on twitter by using @HJR_Global and let’s see how we can help you to get started on your idea this Halloween season.