Face the fear

In a recent poll of visitors to Playthings.com, we were surprised—quite surprised, really—to find that nearly 65 percent of respondents said that Halloween merchandise sales had “none” or “fading” significance to their businesses. My first reaction to that was, “How could that be?” Isn't Halloween the second most popular holiday of the year for kids? (And possibly for a growing number of adults who, like me, find it a good excuse for a party without the weird New Year's Eve pressure to do something that's in some way “special”...) Your job as an industry is marketing products to kids, so where's the disconnect? Is it that Halloween is only about candy, a disposable plastic jack-o'-lantern to collect it in and something that passes for a costume? Frankly, it made me wonder why we were featuring Halloween merchandise as this month's cover story at all if so few of you, at least according to our online poll, weren't stocking such products.

But then I read the story that we produced and thought, isn't that interesting that there are retailers out there who survive off of Halloween merchandise sales all year long? Their secret seems to be to avoid framing what they stock as purely “Halloween” merchandise, instead it's costumes and related accessories for any type of event. A typical specialty toy store would call that kind of product “dress up” or role-play.

One retailer we interviewed did a decent side business renting costumes and props to local TV productions, which is a niche very few retailers reading this magazine could fill, but it was something to think about. Is there another segment of the market you could be selling your dress-up products to besides kids? Could you be doing more in the period between Labor Day and Halloween—the traditional Halloween sales period—to sell more of that kind of product, maybe through dress-up events?

Even as I type this it sounds fairly ridiculous, but lots of people have Columbus Day off from work and are home with their kids on a rare Monday that has no holiday tradition or activity attached to it. What do you do to drive those suddenly free kids and their parents to your store on that day? Could you do something with dress-up then? For some, Columbus Day is about a meeting of two cultures—like Thanksgiving—with Europeans and Native Americans in funny clothes. How about a Columbus Day in-store dress-up event where you dress either as Columbus and his crew (think: pirate) or as a Native American. Similarly, how about marking the Mexican tradition of the Days of the Dead (Nov. 1 and 2) to help move that skeleton-themed merchandise and make Halloween into a three-day holiday? Those two days are entirely about celebrating your ancestors. Could an event be built around kids offering up stories of their grandparents or great-grandparents—it might be very moving, and certainly interesting—or dressing up like their great grandparents, especially if those elders were in careers that lend themselves to dressing a certain way. As that same retailer in our story who does the costume and prop rental business says, “I wish there was another holiday to dress up for.” And instead of just wishing for it, he's pushing to convince people to choose April Fool's Day as a dress-up day. Sounds like a long shot, but you never know, it might just work.

The other thing you'll also notice from our cover story is that much of the merchandise featured is based around licensed properties, the biggest for this year being Superman and the product push surrounding the movie Superman Returns. But many of the other licensed products spotlighted are for older kids or adults who are fans of stories scarier or darker than the annual broadcast of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Those products may look odd sitting next to your Thomas trains and Groovy Girl dolls, but they have loyal followings just as passionate, if not more so, than the average specialty brand.

It seems like there's lots of opportunity surrounding Halloween. The question is, “How do toy retailers take advantage of it?”