Halloween Spending To Hit $8.8B In 2019

A new survey from the National Retail Federation (NRF) – based in US – revealed that total spending for the Halloween holiday 2019, is likely to hit $8.8 billion, as the third-highest level in the 15 years the organization has been tracking Halloween, but below the $9.1 billion record set in 2017.

The National Retail Federation (NRF) is the world’s largest retail trade association. Its members include department stores, specialty, discount, catalog, Internet, and independent retailers, chain restaurants, and grocery stores.

According to the research conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics for NRF, based on 7,400 adults, 172 million people planning to celebrate the Halloween, compared to 175 million last year. And consumers will spend $86.27, slightly fewer than last year’s $86.79, which was a record.

The Washington, D.C.-based trade organization says that social media seems to be playing a larger part in how and why people spend.

“Spending hasn’t changed much over the past few years, but we are seeing a noticeable increase in consumers whose Halloween purchases are inspired by their friends, neighbors and even celebrities on social media,” says Matthew Shay, NRF, president and CEO, in a release.

While online search continues to be the primary source of inspiration, cited by 35%, 28% find ideas by browsing at stores like Target, (Halloween ad here), Walmart and specialty retailers. And 20% say they find ideas from friends and family, with 18% heading to Pinterest, 13% looking to YouTube and 7% turning to Instagram.

About 67% of those celebrating say they’ll purchase costumes, spending about $3.2 billion.

Among adults planning to dress up, 8.9% say they’ll be witches, 3.6% vampires, 3.1 % superheroes, and 2.7%, the perennially popular pirate. While some 3.1 million of their kids will be their favorite princess, 2 million intend to go as Spider-Man, 1.5 million as an Avengers character other than Spider-Man and 1.4 million hope to be Batman.