The ghouls are stirring, and e-retailers are ready.
As consumers start stocking up on candy and piecing together their costumes, e-retailers’ Halloween-themed marketing campaigns are kicking into high gear. With two-thirds of U.S. consumers saying they’ll participate in Halloween festivities this year, according to the National Retail Federation’s Halloween Consumer Spending Survey, and 34.2% of those participants saying they’ll look online for inspiration, web retailers are hoping to capture consumers’ dollars.
And the dollars this year will be significant. The NRF projects U.S. adults will spend $7.4 billion on the holiday this year, with most of that spent on a combination of candy, costumes and décor. The average adult will spend an average of $77.52 celebrating the holiday, up from $75.03 last year. 18% of consumers participating in the holiday say they will spend at least some of that online.
E-retailing leaders are responding with stepped up e-mail messaging and fun, informative posts on social media. EBay Inc., for instance, this week is encouraging consumers to sell last year’s costumes on its marketplace. Yesterday it sent a message to users with the subject line, “Cash in on last year’s costumes” adding in the messaging that it is a “great way to fund this year’s Halloween mischief.” Consumers can list old costumes for sale on the marketplace without a listing fee through Sept. 28. The Home Depot Inc. sent its first Halloween-themed message today with the subject line: BOO! We Dare You to Open! Products promoted in the message include glow-in-the-dark spray paint and a life-size talking Wicked Witch of the West.
Spirit Halloween, the retail chain that this year will operate more than 1,100 temporary store locations in the United States and Canada, officially kicked off the season Sept. 16 when it opened its stores. But it kicked off its online push earlier. It sent subscribers on its e-mail list 10 promotional messages in August and has sent 10 to date in September; that’s up from one message in July and two in June. The offers have been for online redemption only, such as a “buy one, get one 25% off” offer when a coupon code was entered at checkout, and a free shipping offer for orders of more than $50, also with a coupon code.
The increased e-mail frequency may draw early-bird Halloween shoppers. In the NRF survey, 5% of Halloween celebrants start their shopping before September, and 27.1% start in September. Most consumers, however, will shop in October, with 43.3% buying during the first two weeks of the month and 24.6% in the last two weeks.
Top 500 web-only retailer BuyCostumes.com, which is owned by No. 6-ranked Liberty Interactive Corp., kicked off the Halloween frenzy with an event Sept. 2 it called Orange Tuesday, in Milwaukee, WI, near where the e-retailer is based. It hosted a runway fashion show featuring its favorite costumes for 2014, including Captain America, Duck Dynasty camouflage and Disney character Maleficent, along with other community events, such as donating costumes to schools and nonprofit groups. BuyCostumes.com then hit the road to continue celebrating Orange Tuesday; its Orange Ambassadors are putting on costume events in nine more cities on Tuesdays through Oct. 30.
The e-retailer is also using its event coverage to stir up interest on Pinterest, a social sharing network that is popular with consumers looking for Halloween costume ideas. According to the NRF survey, 11.4% of Halloween celebrants say they will look to Pinterest for costume inspiration, versus 4.5% that will look to Twitter and 3.6% that will look to blogs. Facebook will be the most looked-to social network, with 13.5% checking it. BuyCostumes.com is sharing photos of its Orange Tuesday events on a Pinterest board of the same name; it also has boards that show images of the “Top 10 Halloween Party Themes,” and the e-retailer’s blog has deeper descriptions of these, including instructions on how to host each of the themed parties, a customized Evite for each theme and a link to “shop this theme,” which displays a page populated with costumes and decorations that match the theme. (Note to self: must make brain cupcakes for the Zombie Apocalypse party.)
BuyCostumes.com is also working with Internet star, Manny the Frenchie, a French Bulldog who has more than 556,000 followers on Instagram, and more than 430,000 Likes on Facebook, to stir up Halloween spirit. Manny each week is modeling a different costume sold by BuyCostumes.com. A video clip of Manny dressed as an Ewok got 1.7 million views on Facebook alone and more than 41,000 Likes. Posts include the #buycostumes hashtag and also links to the e-retailer’s own pages on the social networks. According to the NRF, 14.3% of Halloween celebrants intend to dress their pets in costume.
Plans for the multi-pronged grassroots and digital campaign pretty much began Nov. 1 of last year, says Jennifer Dominiquini, BuyCostumes.com chief marketing officer. “This is all months and months of planning coming together,” she says. “And when the Halloween campaigns are over, we hope the momentum we’ve created continues year round to encourage year-round dress up.”
And while holiday is fun and games for consumers (and pets), some e-retailers are bypassing Halloween to get started not on Thanksgiving, but on Christmas promotions. Gift e-retailer RedEnvelope.com, another Liberty Interactive e-retailer, made its first winter holiday entreaty to consumers this morning, sending an e-mail message with the subject line: “Ain’t too early for a little ho ho ho.”
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