By Ed Avis, NCA Executive Director
Let me just start by saying this: Halloween is going to be great this year. Despite the craziness and unpredictability of the tariff situation and the overall stress our economy is under, Halloween still falls on a Friday and people are still going to want to celebrate.
Children, especially, couldn’t care less that goods from China are more expensive (or unavailable) – all they care about is getting a costume they want, getting lots of candy in their trick-or-treat bags, and having fun on a chill autumn day.
There’s an article on the website of the the National World War II Museum that describes Halloween during the war years. Even with rationing and the uncertainties and fears of those years, most communities celebrated Halloween like they always had – parades, parties, trick-or-treating.
In my opinion, the difficulties we are facing now are pretty tame compared to 1941-45!
The real question is this: How can NCA members succeed this Halloween, knowing that many prices will be higher and product availability will be lower?
Courtland Hickey, an NCA board member and owner of Chicago Costume, made some great points in this regard in a commentary he wrote for www.costumers.org. He noted that independent, bricks-and-mortar costume retailers have a different relationship with many of the costumes made in China than the big box retailers do. Big box stores evidently make worthwhile margins on those costumes, but small retailers need more. The tariff situation – which means higher wholesale costs – will only exacerbate that.
So Hickey is leaning into the strengths of an independent retailer. He’s getting creative with the cloth, foam and other materials he has and is making one-of-a-kind costumes. He’s refreshing his existing inventory by repacking items, dusting things off, and in general making things look spiffy. And he’s reorganizing his stores – he has two locations – and his website to emphasize in-stock items.
At the same time, he’s buying new inventory cautiously and he’s not fighting the price fight – he’s charging enough to actually make money on each sale. Let the bargain basement shoppers pick through the slim inventory at Walmart and Target…if they come to Chicago Costume, they’ll find more and better costumes at appropriate prices.
The NCA has two categories of members: Buyers (retail stores) and Vendors. Since the tariff chaos has begun, I’ve spoken with many of our Vendor members about how they’re dealing with it. It’s a moving target for them – the tariffs change whenever the presidential administration seems to have another idea – but overall, I’ve been impressed by how our Vendor members are trying to limit the impact of the tariffs. In some cases, when it’s possible, they are “eating” the tariffs, and in other cases they are only passing on a portion of them. That will hurt their own margins, of course, but they evidently feel the long-term benefit of helping their retail customers will make that temporary – hopefully – margin sacrifice worthwhile.
Of course, some of our Vendor members are domestic suppliers. Now more than ever we are grateful to have their steady supply of quality products available!
As we approach Halloween, the NCA will continue to do what we can to make it a great season, with webinars and articles about ways to succeed, emails about discounts and availability, Zoom roundtables to facilitate idea-sharing, and other projects. Together, let’s make this a season that lives up to the expectations of a weekend Halloween!