Halloween decor shoppers buy in mid-September, while consumers wait until mid-October to buy costumes, new data from Jumpshot shows.

Online sales of Halloween decor peaks in mid-September while costume sales peak a month later, according to new data from marketing analytics firm Jumpshot.

Jumpshot analyzed conversion rates between Sept. 1-Oct. 29 for six e-commerce sites that sell a large share of Halloween decor and costume products, including Amazon.com Inc., No. 1 in the Internet Retailer 2017 Top 1000; Party City Corp. (No. 236); Jo-Ann Fabrics (No. 308); Spirit Halloween; Yandy LLC (No. 429); and Grandin Road (owned by HSN Inc., No. 28).

Jumpshot’s analysis is based on its review of more than 160 billion monthly clicks made by 100 million consumers.

Home decor retailer Grandin Road, for example, reached its peak conversion rate of the season during the week of Sept. 18-24 (Monday-Sunday), when its conversion rate reached 8.21%. This is well above its average rate of 5.98% for the entire Sept. 1-Oct. 29 period.

Similarly, Michael’s and Jo-Ann Fabrics, which have a large selection of do-it-yourself and arts-and-crafts products, experienced their season-high conversion rates the previous week, Sept. 11-17 (Monday-Sunday), which is early in the Halloween season.

advertisement

 

Retailers that feature mostly costume products, including Yandy, Spirit Halloween and Party City, saw their season-high conversion rate during the two-week period of Oct. 9-22.

advertisement

 

Amazon, however, with its fast and free shipping guarantee via Prime, grabbed the last-minute shoppers, according to Jumpshot data that analyzed purchases from the costume and accessories category. Amazon accounted for the bulk of costume sales on Oct. 24 (a Tuesday), which is only three days before the big Halloween party weekend, on Oct. 27 (a Friday).

 

advertisement

“Though costumes only account for a small percentage of Amazon’s overall purchases, costume purchases steadily increased with each passing week, peaking the week before Halloween, which suggests Amazon site visitors waited until the last minute to make their Halloween costume purchases,” says Jumpshot CEO Deren Baker.

Amazon sold $52 million worth of costumes this season ($12 million in September and $40 million in October), according to retail analytics firm One Click Retail.

Amazon’s candy sales for Halloween were $19.5 million ($6.5 million in September and $13 million in October), which is a 44.4% increase from $13.5 million in candy sales from Halloween season last year, according to One Click Retail.

Other Halloween-focused retailers, including Halloween Express, BuyCostumes.com (owned by BuySeasons Inc., No. 370), Costume Express.com (also owned by BuySeasons), Costume SuperCenter, Christmas Central (No. 620), Tipsy Elves (No. 635) and Michael’s, had a small volume of traffic or conversion volume that did not compare with the other Halloween retailers, according to Jumpshot.

advertisement

In an ongoing effort to understand the most vital business strategies of merchants that sell online, Internet Retailer is taking a deep dive on conversion rate. Help us improve our estimates and category benchmarks by answering the two questions below. 



Favorite