Don't Fear Halloween

We are now just days shy of Halloween, but despite consumer uncertainty in a tightening economy, retailers at large should be able to calm their fears as we step into the ‘scariest’ holiday of the year.

According to the National Retail Federation’s Halloween Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, more consumers plan on celebrating Halloween this year, spending more on average this holiday.

64.5% of adults (18+) will celebrate Halloween this year, up from 58.7% last year. Consumers will spend on average $66.54 on this holiday, totaling $5.77 billion and an increase of 13.8% over 2007. As Phil Rist, Vice President of Strategy at BIGresearch, said, “After months of bleak economic news, consumers are looking for a reason to let loose. And with Halloween falling on a Friday this year, consumers may plan to celebrate all weekend long.”

Looking to escape from the volatility of recent days, adults are not only dressing themselves up but also having their children and pets join in for some Halloween fun. 36.4% of their Halloween spend will be on costumes, 30.7% on candy, 27.4% on decorations, and 5.5% on greeting cards. So even for retailers whose niche is not in costumes, there just might be a treat in it for everyone.

But Halloween’s just the beginning. We took a look at the trend line for shopping click volume on Google.com from 2007 and mapped it against this year’s upcoming holidays; what we noticed was a significant surge in click volume immediately after Halloween, a trend we expect to see again this year:

This finding is echoed by the OTX/Google 2008 Shopping Intentions Survey highlighted in a previous blog entry, which shows a large percentage of consumers planning to start their holiday shopping and research sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving this year. So gear up - the Halloween kick-off is just around the corner!

Posted by Julia Tang and Eric Lopez, Google Retail Team