The average Canadian adult will spend at least $75 this Halloween, according to the results of a new survey by RetailMeNot.ca. That represents a lot of candy corn and Butterfingers. It also represents a lot of opportunity for retailers.
Stores of all stripes, whether they’re hawking hardware, home decor or jalapenos, stand to benefit by capitalizing on this lucrative holiday. It’s simply a matter of tweaking one’s fixtures in a ghoulish direction and turning up the volume on Halloween-themed merchandising.
Four frightening ideas to get your scare on:
- Halloween doesn’t have to just be about those ubiquitous candies that pull your fillings out. Supermarkets and health food stores can mark the holiday by shining a light on good-for-you treats. Reorganize your store fixtures to feature healthy snack mixes, fibre-rich bars and dried fruits. Their presence might snag Halloween eschewers with fresh ideas.
- Stock up your checkout. Nielsen’s C-Store Executive Summary says that a properly tended checkout display counter can boost front-end sales by nearly 25 percent. And, says the report, Halloween-friendly candy and snacks are biggies in such displays. Make great play of it with three-dimensional tributes to candies, nuts and packaged snacks that might not have warranted checkout-aisle attention during the rest of the year.
- Sell add-ons thoughtfully. That means applying clever thinking to marrying a range of Halloween-hinged products in your displays. Think pumpkins and nutmeg, cookie dough and almond slivers (for witches’ fingers), kitty litter boxes and Tootsie Rolls (for kitty litter cake). The more creative combinations you devise, the more time customers spend in front of them, considering their options.
- Go big. Halloween’s popularity cuts a wide swath, so consumers will indulge retailers’ outsized displays celebrating it. Dress up the place in orange and black and accent it with ghost and goblin stickers. Make your candy and snack end cap displays and stand alone displays big, bold and colourful. And erect additional displays and fixtures in high-traffic areas near deli, seafood, meat and prepared-foods counters. As a finishing touch, costume up your staffers, darken your in-store lighting and broadcast scary noises from your sound system.
- It would be horrifying to forget Fido in your efforts. Americans will spend $2.4 billion on decorations, Halloween novelties and, yes, pet costumes this year. General merchandisers and pet specialty shops can ensure their piece of that pie by drawing attention to products aimed at enhancing customers’ furry pal’s holiday experience. Shelves dedicated to Katy Perry and Pope Francis dog suits can prove a rewarding addition.
