Halloween is supposed to be scary, but just how frightening is the recession making things for the companies that sell candy, costumes and decorations? According to the National Retail Federations 2009 Halloween Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey (I dare you to say that 10 times fast), the average American shopper is expected to spend $56.31 on Halloween goodies this year. And that’s down significantly, from $66.54 last year.

But what’s bad news for retailers overall, may be not quite so dire for online retailers. In an economic climate like this one, people tend to spend more time seeking out the best deals. And for Halloween stuff, often the best deals are online. One large online retailer, Halloween Express, is actually guaranteeing they’ll sell you your favorite costume for less than you’ll find offline. They promise that if you can find the same costume cheaper, they’ll refund the difference, plus 10%.

The Halloween push towards ecommerce means there’s a lot of competition for your costume and candy dollar. A Google search for “Halloween costumes” returns, oh, about 23,000,000 pages. And that’s probably why the aforementioned Halloween Express puts a lot of effort in the months leading up to October, into search engine marketing. According to their spokesman, Brad Butler, “the difference between no. 1 and no. 2 in a search engine is almost a 20% difference in sales.”

So if we are each spending around $56 on Halloween, what are we buying? The average person is expected to spend about $22.50 on candy, and just a little more than that on their costume. We won’t know until after Oct. 31 how much of that is actually spent online, but it should be interesting to see if consumers really do flock to ecommerce to save themselves a few bucks (which they can then spend on even more candy).

Related posts:

1. Halloween + Technology = Costume Ideas Galore
2. Can online retailers dig out of recession, 20% at a time?
3. American retailers finally hit the social media nail on the head with a Black Friday to remember

Tags: eCommerce, Halloween, online retail

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