Nigel FeBland
Editor’s Note: Nigel FeBland is a sales rep who knows the Halloween and costume industry inside and out, and he’s a good friend of the NCA. NCA Executive Director Ed Avis asked him a few questions about the upcoming Halloween season.
Avis: The tariffs are on everyone’s mind. Are they affecting prices as much as we feared?
FeBland: In a lot of cases, people have been able to work around the tariffs. Most of my vendors have not increased their cost that much. I think the average is 10 to 12%. In theory they could be paying as much as 54% with the tariff and the duty.
So you’re saying that some of your clients are eating a big part of the tariffs?
Right, they’re not passing it on a hundred percent. They’re not passing on a lot of it.
In your conversations with your vendors, have you perceived that the uncertainty of the tariff situation is a problem? Or are they rolling with the punches?
Well, I think the uncertainty is really more a question for the retail community, for NCA members. I think they have been holding off on buying stock, they have been like a deer in the headlights. People have been waiting, waiting to see what will happen with the tariffs. And so the orders came into us very late. There was a period of about two months when we got almost no orders. You know, you ask any vendor, it’s very slow right now.
If our stores, our members, in the middle of September, say, “Well, I'm gonna stock up now,” will they be able to get stuff?
Well, some vendors need to get their orders in early to factories in Bangladesh or wherever they order from, and if they didn’t get orders from your stores on time, they won’t have stock. On the other hand, there are certain vendors who will have stock. For example, the ones who were Party City vendors; when the company went out of business, they couldn’t stop production. So they took the product, and now they’re trying to sell it.
There’s one costume company told me several months ago that he was gonna place his orders with the factories regardless of the tariffs. He feels like, you know, product is king right now. So he decided, “I am going to place my orders anyway.” I assume that guy will have product when people come running.
So I think it’s gonna be very much touch and go, you know. If your guys need product in mid-September, early October, we will direct them to the specific vendors who, for one reason or another, have product. It just may not be the usual sources they go to.
I know you see a lot of stores, a lot of retailers. What are some of your favorites and why?
Well, I think we’re a very unique situation in New York. We have some very key stores that are really specialists. And, so I would, you know, be partial to them because they’re local to me. So, you know, whoever I recommend, I’m gonna aggravate someone else <laugh>.
OK, let me change the question then. Without saying the names, why are they great? What characteristics make a store great?
They are very educated in our market. Most of them go to the Halloween and Party Expo, and a lot of them, if they’re into decor, go to the St. Louis show [TransWorld], which is a very good decor show and also high-end masks and very unusual products that you don’t see at the Halloween and Party Expo. So a lot of ‘em go to both shows. I would say the number one reason they’re successful is they’re educated about the market. They know what’s available. They know what’s a fair price and what isn’t.
And they’re creative in the way that they present their products. The two strongest stores that I have in New York, they’re not huge stores by any means. Sometimes these stores are tight, but every inch is used. And I would say they really differentiate themselves from the mass market because they make it an entertaining experience. I would say they’re entertainment retailers. You know, you walk in there, it’s like a theater, so they’re really making an experience.
That’s another important aspect — your members are very experienced people. All the members I’ve met in your organization, they’ve been doing it a long time. They really know the market. And I’m sure, you know, they’re successful for that reason. They’re educated, they’re creative, and they’re experienced.
So how is Halloween going to be this year?
Well, the economy, and what’s going on in the world, has really affected our business. But my contention has always been that in the Halloween business, the day of the week is more important than the actual economy that we’re in. Over the years, if we were in a depressed state, but it was a Friday or Saturday night, we always did well. And so, you know, I believe this Friday Halloween will still be good for your retailers.
It’s gonna be a funny year for the vendors. I would say it’ll just be a so-so year for the vendors. But I think for your members, for the retailers, they’ll do fine. And they should do even better next year [when Halloween falls on a Saturday]. Historically, that’s the way it’s been.
Nigel, you have been in this industry for a long time….
Forty-six years. Forty-six years doing the same thing. I figured, you know, eventually I’ll learn how to do it right, if I stay with it long enough, <laugh>.
So Nigel, in your long career, what was your best Halloween ever?
I don’t know. There’s been a lot of good Halloweens. There’s been a lot of bad Halloweens. But the best were probably when we were going from kid Halloween into adult, when that transition was going on. It was tremendous growth. You know, when Halloween was really transforming from a kind of low-end kiddie holiday into more of an adult holiday, I would say those are probably the strongest years we had going.
I remember when I started in the business, my father was selling a 99-cent makeup kit and a $1.99 kit. Maybe we went to $2.99, whatever. And so I said to him, what we need is a $9.99 kit. And he and my uncle thought I was absolutely crazy. So I went and I spoke to Zauder and I bought some tubes of makeup. And we actually created a clown kit. And this was gonna sell for I think $7.99. And they just thought this would be a total failure.
So I went down to Woolworth and I dressed up in my three-piece suit with a clown wig, and my face completely done. And that’s how I went to my appointment. And my father said, “You’re either gonna get thrown out or you’re gonna get a huge order. I don’t know which.” And I came back and got a hundred thousand dollars order that year for this item. And that really transformed our business because they started to realize there was an adult market out there.
A catalog for Topstone Industries, illustrated by Nigel's brother, David FeBland.
And when was that?
That was the ‘80s. We really transformed my family business based on what was going on in the marketplace. We started to make our own masks in Korea. But we started going after a $9.99 mask, which was unheard of back then. There were only three companies back then. It was TopStone — our family business — Collegeville and Ben Cooper. That was the entire business.
So the biggest growth was when the business transformed from kiddie Halloween to adult. But, you know, today’s volume is much higher. But if you’re talking about growth, that’s when I remember, you know, it really going crazy, in the ‘80s and ‘90s as Halloween was becoming adult.