By Christie Duffy
Correspondent
Get ready for tricks and treats because Halloween pop-up shops are open.
From screaming displays and decorations for your front porch to the hottest new costumes of the year, Halloween retailers are taking over empty storefronts across the state and the country in an effort to lure you in.
Pop-up Halloween shops have only two months to make their sales count.
Store owners we talked to in other locations tell us that renting this big box space to sell costumes and decorations is not cheap. They say rent for two months can run from $15,000 to $50,000.
Those numbers did not surprise pop-up expert Eric Anton who says landlords can charge higher monthly rates for prime pop-up real estate around the holidays, adding that temporary store space in an area like ours can go for upwards of $200 to $300 per square foot.
“Halloween is becoming more and more profitable for landlords and I’m told it’s become one of the most profitable holidays for retailers, catching up to Christmas. Not beating Christmas but it’s very in demand now,” said Eric Anton, co-founder of PopUpInsider.
To meet that demand, retailers like Spirit Halloween will open over 1,100 stores and hire 20,000 temporary employees.
And it’s not just Halloween that has pop-ups sprouting up around the state.
“You see banks taking out pop-up stores to large new types of credit cards. You see technology companies and computer companies, the Apples and Microsofts and Samsungs, doing product launches,” Anton said.
Due to the growing popularity of pop-ups and the improving economy, vacant retail spaces like an old Loehmann’s are becoming more scarce.
Spirit Halloween says this year they’ll open 40 pop-up stores across New Jersey, seven less than last year.
But our Halloween dollars do stretch further than in the past, according to the National Retail Federation. The NRF projected last year that consumers would spend $75 each on Halloween. They say that’s double the amount spent in 2005.
This year’s costume and candy spending forecast is expected in a few weeks.