average 4,000 sq. ft. of space, and CBL didn’t have as many of those locations available. Cardall does believe that Halloween retailers can add a lot to a shopping center due to the exciting use of space and the variety they add to the tenant mix.
Spirited growth Spirit Halloween, the oldest and largest temporary Halloween pop-up store company, entered the marketplace 30 years ago. This year, they will have 1,050 stores in their portfolio, 750 corporate locations and 300 consignment operators. They have an unusual business structure for their consignees. In a nutshell, here’s how their business opportunity works: retailers don’t pre-pay for inventory. Instead, retail entrepreneurs pay a $25,000 deposit and in exchange they receive enough inventory to stock their entire Halloween pop-up store. As part of their agreement, they also must agree to use the Spirit Halloween POS system and credit processing system. Spirit Halloween keeps a percentage of the credit transactions throughout the season, which is applied to the total cost of inventory, so in essence, the retailer is paying down their inventory costs gradually, instead of up front. In addition, whatever inventory does not sell by the end of the season, as long as it’s still packaged and in good condition, the retailer can ship back to Spirit Halloween for a merchandise credit. Sullivan explains, “This way retailers don’t have to fund all of the inventory in advance and they don’t have to carry inventory over to next year either.” One of the advantages for retailers of working with Spirit Halloween is that consignees will benefit from the broad range of costumes they develop. According to Lisa Barr, senior director of Spirit Halloween, “What makes [Spirit] stores so special is our breadth and depth of costumes. Among one of the many things we do to ensure uniqueness is working with licensed partners to come up with exclusive costumes and accessories that you can’t find anywhere else.” For example, this year Barr predicts that their Walking Dead Rick Grimes and Teddy Bear Girl costumes will be a huge hit.
Pop-up success There are other players in the Halloween pop-up retail space. Joe Purifico, CEO of Masquerade, LLC, operating under the name Halloween Adventure, has secured 50
SpecialtyRetail.com Fall 2013 n Specialty Retail Report 105
pop-up Halloween stores this season. Purifico, a 25-year industry veteran attributes his long-term success to: “Great employees, great costumes, and great locations.” He explains that great employees are really the most important asset, because you can have great locations and inventory but without your team, you won’t have store sales. Purifico added, we’re very lucky, “Many of our employees come back year after year.” When asked about his prediction for this year’s Halloween sales he says, “If
the weather cooperates we’ll have a great season.” Purifico’s sales were greatly impacted by weather over the last two years because all his locations are in the Northeast—last year Hurricane Sandy hit and the year before a Nor’easter brought unwanted snow, thus shortening the eight-week selling season. When asked about his strategy for competing against the
big-box stores, he says, “Location is a key element. We look for high visibility, high profile locations.” He also has a thorough marketing plan in place. He says, “Our most successful marketing strategy is billboard advertising. We look for high profile locations to promote our stores.” Another element that helps Halloween pop-up stores
compete is that they offer customers something experiential while in big-box stores the space allocated to Halloween is limited. Every year, Spirit Halloween creates designated destinations within the store that are themed. This year, many of the stores will have a haunted house and an insane
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