The facade of the seasonal Halloween decor store Spirit Halloween in a shopping center in Dublin, California, on August 23, 2018.
Smith Collection | Archive photos | Getty Images
Halloween is over and your local Spirit Halloween is about to become a ghost town.
The store opens for sales on Wednesday. It closes on Thursday. But his work is not done yet. Actually it goes all year round.
Inventory carryover from season to season is “very minimal,” a Spirit Halloween representative said. But costumes that have not been sold and are still in good condition are stored for the next spooky season. Merchandise is also available for purchase year-round through the Spirit Halloween website.
As for the more than 40,000 employees Spirit Halloween has hired this season, a Spirit Halloween representative said many will have the opportunity to stay with the company in a role at mall chain Spencer’s Gifts, also owned by Spirit Halloween’s parent company, Spencer Spirit Holdings. .
The Halloween chain is also almost entirely vertical, with Spirit Halloween handling all “sourcing, design and production” itself, CEO Steven Silverstein said Monday on CNBC’s “The Exchange.” “Spirit has become such a phenomenon that no other market can keep up,” Silverstein said.
Spirit Halloween stores are known for ‘owning’ abandoned storefronts for the Halloween season and disappearing without a trace after the spooky holiday, making it a popular online meme whenever something is shut down.
The retailer opened a record 1,506 stores this season, more than 50 more than in 2022, Spirit Halloween told CNBC. The number of locations has more than doubled since 2009, the company added.
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But these store openings are not conventional. Because Spirit Halloween locations are only open a few months each year, the company does not need to build a new storefront or sign a long-term lease to open its more than 1,500 locations.
A Spirit Halloween representative told CNBC that the operations team works year-round to secure locations, often deploying a storefront as early as the spring and into the first week of October.
For landlords, this means someone renting their space, even if only for a few months. The number of store closures has increased in recent years as retailers run into problems Bed Bath & Beyond, Rite Aid and CVS Pharmacy are closing large portions of locations across the country. So these become opportunities for Spirit Halloween, as the company pays to use the abandoned space for the Halloween season.
The store locator on its website even lists the previous occupant of the store space before Spirit Halloween took over.
A screenshot from Spirit Halloween’s online store locator on November 1, 2023, showing what previously occupied the store’s space.
Drew Richardson | CNBC
“We have built great relationships with our real estate partners over the years,” a Spirit Halloween representative told CNBC. “It’s a win-win situation for all parties involved.”
The company is also flexible in its preference for retail space. Spirit Halloween considers locations everywhere from strip centers to shopping malls, with square footage ranging from 5,000 to 50,000.
“No store is too big or too small,” the company told CNBC.
“It’s crazy how the stores just pop up,” shopper Maria, 16, said Saturday. She and her friend Jane, 17, were waiting in a wrapped line outside a New York Sprit Halloween location. “Then they just disappear,” she said.
The store, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, opened in the former location of Harmon Face Values, a health and beauty retailer owned by the now bankrupt Bed Bath & Beyond. The location closed in February 2022.
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Outside a Spirit Halloween store in New York City on October 31, 2023.
Drew Richardson | CNBC
It takes nine to 11 days for a Spirit Halloween store to go through the opening process, the company told CNBC. The short ramp-up time gives the retailer an advantage over traditional store openings, says GlobalData retail analyst Neil Saunders.
“Spirit Halloween doesn’t have to pay too much attention to things like flooring and construction, which are usually very time-consuming when opening new stores,” Saunders said.
However, opening in a temporary location can have its drawbacks. At a Spirit Halloween location in New York City, customers are confronted with humid air and the hum of several plug-in fans.
“The air conditioning was off here the first week,” said one of the venue’s managers, who declined to be named because they were not authorized to comment. “Given that we’ve only been here for a few months, I don’t think it’s worth resolving in their opinion.”
After leaving a busy Spirit Halloween location — a former CVS pharmacy — in New York’s Brooklyn Heights neighborhood on Friday, a woman who wanted to be identified only as Lana said it was funny that the stores open in different places every year .
“It can make them hard to find,” said Lana, 35. She had just bought Spider-Man and marshmallow costumes for her two children.
“I’m from Russia and we don’t normally celebrate Halloween there,” she said. “So I’m a casual Halloween reveler.”
But Americans take Halloween seriously. The The National Retail Federation said Americans are expected to spend a record $12.2 billion on the spooky holiday this year, surpassing pre-pandemic levels.
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