Americans Spend $8 Billion on Halloween!

That’s right, Halloween retail shopping is expected to reach $8 billion this year. This discovery was a result of the annual survey from the National Retail Federation conducted by BIGinsight,  A record 170 million people plan to celebrate, the most in NRF’s 10-year survey history.  

That 170 million translates into seven in 10 Americans who on average will spend $79.82 on the holiday with about a third, ($24.25 to be exact) being used to buy candy.  Interestingly, on candy purchases, men will outspend ladies by an average of $4.58.  Of course that doesn’t mean the ladies won’t be eating their share. Snickers and Reese’s are the top rated candy favorites with the survey respondents exhibiting a great deal of psychological conflict over whether to actually give the candy to the treaters or eat it themselves.  Can I get an “Amen!”

The survey also found that 45 percent of consumers plan to dress up.  And the net average amount spent on costumes this year is up a few dollars from 2011 ($28.65 compared with $26.52).  For costume inspiration, survey results revealed that while retail stores, online searches and ideas from family and friends are still king, social media sites such as Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter are gaining an edge. 

Of the people celebrating Halloween, more than half (51.4%) will decorate their home or yard, up from 49.5 percent last year,  More than one-third (36.2%) will throw or attend a party and 33.2 percent will take children trick-or-treating. Additionally, 15.1 percent will ensure their furry friends are part of the fun too, by dressing their pet in costume.

Pet owners are projected to get into the Halloween spirit in a big way, spending $370 million on animal costumes.  That’s a 19 percent increase from 2011. The top pet picks include a pumpkin, a devil and a hot dog. Even Martha Stewart is getting in on the action. 

Despite record spending figures for this year’s Halloween holiday, one-fourth of U.S. consumers (25.9%) say the state of the economy will impact their Halloween plans. To compensate, most say they will spend less overall (83.5%), while others will make a costume instead of buying one (18.0%), and over one-third (36.1%) will buy less candy.  Good luck with that. 

 

No Tricks, Just Treats

Walking by a local gift shop’s display window in my quaint downtown Berwyn, PA the other day, I saw a black sweater with witches embroidered on it, a motion detecting skeleton and a dried wreath with small pumpkin lights and I wondered, when did this all happen?  Where did the inflatable lawn figures of black-cats, the plastic flesh body parts, those bats with the L.E.D. eyes, even luminaries lining driveways, where did it all come from?

When I was little Halloween wasn’t so, well, notorious.  Yes, we had the costumes and the door to door candy seeking activities (with my dad dressed up as a physician because he was one and had the stethoscope) but we missed out on the festival atmosphere that is injected into this event, today.  Okay, so maybe its a business push, the expansion of Christmas holidays right through Thanksgiving and into Halloween with hats off to good old American capitalism to getting all of us geared up early in the “buying season”.  But there’s also another element, a new element, tied into the age old “trick or treat” aspect of Halloween.

My good friend, Donna Guthrie (yes she is my sister-in-law) captured it succinctly in her latest episode at MeetMeAtTheCorner, a site for 7-13 year olds but you’ll enjoy it too.  The 2 minute video which highlights Halloween, also highlights this new element, philanthropy.  You know philanthropy, the desire to improve human welfare through charitable or selfless activities.

Halloween is a great way to get your kids thinking about ways to help others and there’s a huge benefit.  Just  take a minute to learn about some of the high school kids that have gotten Jefferson Awards for Public Service because they concocted ways to lend a hand in their communities.  The fruit of this type of action is greater than the gift itself because the kids involved discover how to involve others.  They find out how to organize and plan an event around a focused goal. They learn how to be leaders.

So when you watch Donna’s Halloween video episode, it’s really much more than “that’s nice”.  Its a way to take a silly holiday where your kids beg for candy and turn it into a lesson in developing homespun leadership.  Still fun, but not so silly.  Now where did I leave my broom and the chocolate!