Halloween shopping stays hot, starts early as Minnesotans seek viral decorations

Abi Gray wasn't a huge Halloween fan as a kid, but after she found an inflatable ghost in a local Buy Nothing group as an adult and posted it by her front door, that changed.

Her collection has quickly grown in the past two years, so much so that Gray is now saving up for the viral 12-foot skeleton decoration Home Depot is selling for just under a couple hundred dollars. Despite the cost, she thinks it would fit nicely alongside the smaller skeletons poking out of her flowerpots and the ones trying to rise from their graves in her yard and those peering from her front porch windows.

"My parents didn't do this much for Halloween. I went trick-or-treating a couple of times when I was little, and it wasn't a big deal," she said. "When I started to live on my own, and I realized I get to set the rules on decorating and how crazy my house is, that's when it kicked in."

Gray — with her graveyard headstones, purple-eyed black cats, twinkling ghosts and a large glow-in-the-dark pink spider web — is one of a growing number of consumers going all in on the fall holiday. The National Retail Federation (NRF) expects Halloween spending to total $11.6 billion this season. And while that's actually down from $12.2 billion last year, it's still the second-highest spending year since at least 2005.

The NRF estimated about $104 per person spent on Halloween, with nearly half of shopping done before October.

This year, Gray and many other giant skeleton fans were too late for Home Depot's "Skelly." The menacing fixture sold out so fast at Minnesota stores that employees had already taken down displays by the first week of October, according to Tyler Pelfrey, brand communications manager at Home Depot.

Nationally, there are still a few left to purchase, he said. But on Facebook Marketplace, local sellers are asking for sometimes double the retail price.

"One thing that we are proud of is: When it comes to Skelly … we were able to keep him the same price of $299 since his debut in 2020," Pelfrey said. "The team has also added multiple accessories and add-ons" for Skelly.

Capitalizing on the viral sensation, Home Depot debuted Skelly's Dog, measuring 7 feet from nose to tail and nearly 5 feet tall.

Social media is also helping other retail stores create fans of Halloween products. At Minneapolis-based Target, there's Lewis the Pumpkin Ghoul, a friendly figure known for his catchphrase, "I am not a jack-o-lantern. My name is Lewis."

This year, Target produced a video series called "Lewis Lore" to give his admirers some backstory. The clips have generated nearly 4 million views across Instagram and TikTok, said Loni Monroe, senior public relations manager for Target.

"Halloween lovers were captivated by Lewis the Pumpkin Ghoul's sassy sayings last October," Monroe said. "We heard directly from his fans that they wanted more of Lewis."

Last year, the ghoul sold out at stores, according to Monroe.

HalloweenCostumes.com, based in Mankato, thas garnered the attention of Halloween fanatics by showing off thousands of its costumes on social media. But decorations are the fastest-growing segment of the business, according to CEO Tom Fallenstein. It's an upward trend that started once trick-or-treating returned after the pandemic. He estimated Halloween decoration sales are up about 20% to 30%.

"We've got fresh stuff every year," he said. "A lot of people come to us because animatronics aren't simple things to make. It's a lot of specialty work."

"They know what factories our animatronics come from," he said, "and if I have a video with a product we haven't launched in the background, they'll notice and ask when it is coming."

Fallenstein's website has more than100 life-size animatronics, and though that doesn't include a certain 12-foot skeleton, there is an 8-foot version that has similar features. Or shoppers can opt for the colossal 25-foot inflatable Beetlejuice.

But if people are just now buying their terrifying clowns, creepy witches and unsettling antique dolls, they're behind, Fallenstein said. Buying from his site typically begins as early as July and August and peaks around early October for decorations. The rest of the month until Oct. 31, most shoppers are just buying costumes, he said.

Gray said she enjoys the commotion in her yard before the big holiday. Recently, two 5-year-olds were worried her decorative web might catch real butterflies and asked her how she kept that from happening.

She showed them it wasn't real, and says that's what she loves about decorating: "That's the exciting part." Though she only sees a handful of trick-or-treaters on the actual day, "I get to see their reactions to my decorations before the holiday."