| Halloween
Definitely Happy for Retailers
By Paul A. Paterson
February
1, 2003
The
result of this increased interest has been that more and more manufacturers
are either developing Halloween product lines or are tailoring existing
lines to take advantage of the season of the mask. According to
Tom Vierhile, executive editor of Productscan Online,
products from microwave popcorn to cookies have been repackaged
to make them suitable for the treat bag. Productscan Online's tracking
found companies released a total of 55 limited edition products
for Halloween in 2002, up from only 12 in 1995. Some larger candy
companies now use the holiday to test market new product lines,
he said.
"You've
got a lot of large companies going after the holiday," he explained.
"A lot of smaller companies, for whom Halloween is like Christmas,
are getting squeezed. It's low-lying fruit being picked."
Nowhere
has this been more evident than the domination of the costume market
by the characters drawn from movies, television and pop culture,
rather than those created at home from scratch. "People are
latching onto these shows and kids go nuts for it," said Graham.
“Also, I don't know if people push that creative Halloween
aspect any more."
For
retailers, the trick to exploiting this licensed market is deciding
which characters are going to capture the imagination of the average
trick-or-treater, something that is difficult even for experts in
the field. Case in point, Shari Maxwell recalls stocking Terminator
masks in expectation of thousands of tiny Schwarzeneggars going
door to door. "We were overstocked on those masks for years,"
she said. "They just didn't sell."
Aside
from costumes and candy, families spend money every year on a widening
selection of spooky decorations and scary accessories, some turning
their homes into temporary haunted houses. This has extended the
whole season for retailers.
"It's become seasonal," said Krugman. "It opens up
the marketing to the whole month of October. It's a month-long celebration,
so you have people decorating like it was Christmas."
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