Halloween eCommerce: What To Sell And Which Niche To Use

Quick Summary:

Halloween is upon us! The “scary-good” time of the year, but don’t be scared of this prime shopping date. Halloween is just a small holiday compared to Easter and Christmas, yet such minor holidays like Halloween can bring huge growth in sales to e-commerce retailers. Although Halloween items are just temporary, they are ubiquitous and […]

By Trân Nguyễn

August 26, 2021

34% of all Halloween purchases are made through e-commerce sites.
148 million people plan and spend $8 billion to celebrate Halloween in 2020
$92.12 is average expenditure per customer in 2020

Although Halloween items are just temporary, they are ubiquitous and have many sales opportunities to cross-selling and up-selling. The most popular products sold during Halloween are Costumes, Candies, Decorations, and Greeting Cards. But if your products have nothing to do with Halloween, don’t hesitate to “halloweenize” them during this holiday time.

What to list on Halloween to solidly win a campaign?

Absolutely, T-shirt:

Based on Google Trend, Halloween t-shirts reached 100% peak interest during the period of October 18-24 last year. Gearment’s statistics also reported that t-shirts are the best-seller on this holiday.

Ornament:

Do not be confused that ornaments are only for Christmas. Regarding Gearment’s data from previous years, ornaments are top 2 in our best-sellers on Halloween. Ornaments can be one of the top decorations when it comes to holidays, so does Halloween. “Halloweenizing ” ornaments and listing them on your e-commerce store will be a booster in your revenue.

Mug:

If you have searched for Halloween enough, you will see that mugs being Halloweenized are on top of the research. Stop hesitating and start listing some sponky mugs for Halloween lovers from now on!

Cloth face mask:

Face masks can be one of the most common customs on Halloween if the design brings the Halloween-themed vibe. Enormous brands like Disney, Vistaprint, Crayola have been joining in and getting a lot of positive feedback for years. Its sale is predicted to grow more this year since the coronavirus has not stopped on the globe.

Here are some famous designs for Halloween:

Pumpkin

Let’s start with the pumpkin – a symbol not only of Halloween but also of America. You can boost your sales by selling POD products with stylized pumpkin image and Halloween quotes such as:

Give ’em pumpkin to talk about

I only have pumpkin pies for you

I am ahead of the carveI am a pun king

To make your products even more unique, you can also combine pumpkin with other niches like dog, cat and skull

Witch

Witch ranked No.1 and No.6 in Top 10 Halloween costumes for adults and kids based on NRF data in 2020. The search for “switch” was consistently high on Google Trend last Halloween in the US, Canada, Newzealand. But not only that, POD products associated with witch images are also selling well.

Halloween eCommerce: What To Sell And Which Niche To Use — witch design for Halloween POD products

Vampire

Similar to witch, vampire is on Top 10 Halloween costumes for adults and kids. This year instead of traditional 2D design, let’s catch the trend right away with personalized design – create a one-of-a-kind and personalized product experience.

Skull

When it comes to Halloween, skull is a popular niche that brings the most Halloween spooky vibe. If your theme is about fright and scare, do not hesitate to jump in this niche since it is one of the best-selling niches on the holiday.

Design ideas for Halloween?

Regardless of the niche combinations, your design must pique the buyer’s interest. Here are some hot combos:

Halloween + Career
Halloween + Pet
Halloween + Movie

Horror movie characters (IT, Annabelle, Valak,…) for adults
Princess, Superhero or Spiderman for children
Halloween + Food

Even if you have amazing products, it’s important to understand customers and market as well as put effort on creating appealing marketing campaigns to have more engagement. Clearly understanding customers will help you identify effective advertising channels and prepare the most suitable strategy for each.

Customers’ buying behaviour:

31.3% of customers plan to start their shopping in September
43.3% make their purchases within the first weeks of October.
19.6% do Halloween shopping within the last two weeks of October

So the sellers should start to list Halloween products before the holiday 2 months to optimize sales and serve customers who want to shop earlier to get deals or make sure they buy their desired items.

Demographic:

Millennial (18-34 years old) are the most big customer segmentation as their expenditures are to reach $183 each on candy, costumes, decorations and miscellaneous items.

Generation X’ers are expected to spend about $70 each
Baby boomers only $23 each

But sellers should target all the customer segmentations since most Halloween-themed products suggested above are fit for all ages.

Shopping channel:

In this digital age, online shopping is the preference of the US consumers at all ages. As many holidays, Americans are planning to celebrate Halloween even in the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Consumers are finding ways to safely mark this autumnal holiday that mean the percentage of Halloween purchases are estimated to increase tremendously in this year.

Social media provides endless inspiration, and the number of people relying on these platforms for costume ideas has grown significantly. Lately, Pinterest, Youtube or Twitter inspire are popular sites where Halloween celebrants continue to use social media to find the ideal costume. It is the right time to leverage a multi-selling approach to scale up your business instead of only sticking to familiar sites such as Facebook or Instagram.

Don’t forget to “halloweenize” your store

Refresh your online store with a more Halloween look, but you shouldn’t freak customers out and change too much as it lasts for a very short time each year. Instead, you can make a difference with these small changes, such as a spooky coupon pop-up, a spine-tingling banner or Header bar + CTA.

Welcome coupon pop-up

A Halloween welcome popup that appears when a customer first enters your store to attract their attention, impress them with a catchy Halloween design and compelling CTA.

Banner Ads:

It is scientific that banner ads are also considered as the multi-sensory advertising tool that can touch multiple sensory points of your customers to provoke them in making future buying decisions. Design banner ads can quickly grab the attention of your target audience to show how ideal the discounts your ecommerce stores offer are, and to ensure the better returns on your investment.