Ever notice how every October,
those weird Halloween stores start popping up everywhere.
They seem to spring up overnight,
right off the highway or smack in the middle of a strip mall.
Suddenly, storefronts are covered in big orange banners
with names like Halloween this or Halloween that.
Sure, they're kind of an eyesore,
but the Halloween pop-up industry is one of
the few success stories of the 2008 recession.
Here's how Halloween pop-ups beat the recession by zombifying retail.
When the recession first hit in 2008,
store closures spiked, reaching 6,000 that year alone.
It was the dawn of the so-called retail apocalypse.
A succession of store closures that continues today.
Major chains like Circuit City,
Office Depot and Linens 'n Things were shuttering stores left and right,
but Halloween proved to be surprisingly recession proof.
Revenues from costume, candy,
and decoration sales actually increased during
the recession and continued to grow beyond 2008.
Belt tightening didn't mean people weren't willing to shell out to get spooky,
and look how eager retailers are to cash in on the Halloween spirit.
You'd dream it with [inaudible].
Happy Halloween.
Wow. Halloween pop-up stores have been around since the 1980s,
but took off during the recession because suddenly
vendors had tons of newly available retail space.
Between 2009 and 2010,
the number of Halloween pop-up stores surged by 15 percent.
Spirit Halloween, the nation's largest Halloween pop-up chain moved
into 83 former Circuit City locations in 2009.
By October of 2010,
15,000 storefronts were covered with those ugly orange banners,
and pop-ups were advertising these spaces as being a lot bigger and a lot better.
Spirit Halloween, the brand new Halloween
superstore with over 10,000 square feet of costumes.
Located on Hamilton Avenue across from Copps.
The average size of a shuttered Circuit City was 30,000 square feet,
and these stores were anchor locations in shopping centers and malls.
Highly trafficked areas with plenty of parking and surrounded by other major retailers.
Now open, Halloween Express located in the Costco shopping center.
The largest selection of Halloween costumes,
accessories and decorations on the Central Coast.
Before the recession, short term tenants were seen as a risk,
but after the market crashed a temporary tenant was better than no tenant at all.
But Halloween pop ups actually offered some relief to landlords,
who could sign a short term leases while they were waiting for longer term tenants.
A process that typically takes months or even years,
and pop-ups are generally willing to pay a higher rents on three month leases.
So, empty stores can be raised from the dead, at least temporarily.
By design, Halloween pop-ups were primed to flourish during the recession.
They're low maintenance, seasonal and they lean into the holiday.
The stores try to make the shopping experience look fun.
Halloween costume trends are fairly consistent.
The same inventory can be sold year after year,
and the stores themselves can be fun sized or king sized.
Spirit Halloween crams into spaces from 3,000 to 50,000 square feet.
This means malls, freestanding stores,
and parking lots, almost anything can work.
It's at Halloween Express,
in the big orange tent at the Asheville Mall,
and now our new location inside the Asheville Outlets.
And it seems like moving into all this unused real estate has paid off.
According to Spirit Halloween,
they only choose locations that have 35,000
potential customers within a five mile radius,
with at least 25,000 cars passing by per day.
Not too bad for a business that seems to spring up overnight,
because you know what they say about real estate.
What are you going to be for Halloween?
and where are you buying your costume?
Let us know in the comments below,
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