I took the kids this weekend for our annual pilgrimage to the Halloween Spirit Store, and the scariest thing I saw there - beside the sexy costumes for little girls and the Abu Ghraib-like hanging man decoration complete with screaming sound effects - was the fact that people were in line at the cash registers 10-deep charging up their credit cards like there was no tomorrow.
All this spending, in spite of the fact that "consumer spending for the quarter just ended will almost certainly shrink, the first quarterly decline in nearly two decades," The NYTimes reports today. However, fourth quarter statistics may not be quite as frightening.
Over the past decade, Halloween has become a behemoth holiday for retailers rivaled only by Christmas. In fact, since 2003, spending on Halloween has nearly doubled, according to Advertising Age. But I would have thought that this economy, and particularly the financial nightmares of the past two weeks, would have scared people off this year. Not so.
My anecdotal evidence can be backed up by recent statistics from the National Retail Federation, which expects Halloween spending this year to reach $5.77 billion dollars. That's a heckuva lot of plastic vampire teeth!
According to the National Retail Federation’s Halloween Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, more Americans plan to celebrate Halloween this year, as compared to last year (64.5% vs. 58.7%). Apparently, says the the NRF, “consumers--who have been anxious and uncertain for the past several months--may be looking at Halloween as an opportunity to forget the stresses of daily life and just have a little fun.”
And while any consumer spending helps jump-start our dismal economy --- this Halloween spending spree we're all on doesn't bode well for that other, more cheery holiday that's just around the corner. Anxious retailers are stocking less for the upcoming Christmas season, and if you believe a new poll out by American Express Publishing, even the wealthy are reportedly planning to spend less.
I guess if the Economic Grinch steals Christmas, we ought to be thankful the Great Pumpkin is saving Halloween.
Still - the whole mess scares me more than any mummy ever could.
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