Business View - October 2015 15
68 million Americans will dress up this Halloween
and another 20 million pet owners will dress up
their pet.
Nine in 10 (93.7%) Halloween shoppers will buy
candy, spending a total of $2.1 billion, and an ad-
ditional 33.5 percent will buy greeting cards, spend-
ing a total of $330 million. Two in five celebrants
(44.8%) plan to decorate their home or yard, mean-
ing there’s no question consumers will see their
fair share of pumpkins, hay bales and even life-size
Minions and black cats strewn across their neigh-
borhoods. The average person planning to buy
decorations will spend $20.34 with total spending
expected to reach $1.9 billion.
When it comes to how consumers plan to cele-
brate, most will hand out candy (67.8%), or dress
in costume (43.5%), though there will be no short-
age of jack-o-lanterns lighting up windows this year
with 41 percent of people planning to carve pump-
kins. Nearly one-third of consumers (31.5%) plan to
throw or attend a party with friends and family.
More consumers have decided to head to stores or
shop online early to pick out costumes and decora-
tions. More than one-third of consumers (34.1%)
will start their Halloween shopping before the first
of October, up slightly from 32.1 percent last year,
while 40.9 percent will get started in the first half of
the month and one-quarter (25%) of celebrants will
wait for the final weeks of October.
“People shouldn’t be too
surprised when they see
Halloween candy and dec-
orations available in stores
as early as September
first,” Prosper Insights Prin-
cipal Analyst Pam Goodfel-
low said. “Given that more
than a third of Americans
enjoy taking advantage of
early-bird deals to kick off
their fall celebrations, it
seems there’s plenty of ap-
petite among consumers
to enjoy a perfectly ‘fright-
ful’ Halloween.”
Similar to past years, the majority of consumers will
find inspiration for their costumes online (31.4%)
or will head to costume shops and retail stores
(26.8%) before they make a final decision. Pinterest
continues to grow in popularity among those look-
ing for costume inspiration (13.3%), as this year’s
percentage is nearly double the amount who used
the site for inspiration just three years ago (7.1%).
Millennials remain the drivers of Pinterest traffic
around Halloween though with 24.9 percent of 18-
24 year olds and 23.7 percent of 25-34 year olds
using the site for costume inspiration.
