How your store can tap into America's $3 billion dollar Halloween candy spree

Article published on Oct 19, 2022 How your store can tap into America's $3 billion dollar Halloween candy spree

Last year, experts estimated that Americans spent $3 billion dollars on halloween candy. And while more and more are buying online, 70% of shoppers are still buying their Halloween candy out in the real world. This is something just about every retail store can jump in and participate in. In this post, we'll talk about how...

What kind of candy should you sell at Halloween?

Not all candy is created equal. For instance the internet always loves to debate whether candy corn is inherently delicious, or inherently disgusting. So, how should you decide which candies to sell during the Halloween season? Luckily the folks at candystore.com take Halloween very seriously, and they've collected a number of interesting stats on all things candy.

In the graphic below, they examined 15 years of sales data from 2007-2021, focusing on the season leading up to Halloween. While they determined the top-selling Halloween candy in each state, they also determined the top-selling candies in the Nation as a whole, which you can examine below.

Anything surprising? I suppose we predicted that candy corn was too hotly-debated to be the top-seller. But I am surprised that HotTamales beat them on this list. (HotTomales are the red cylindrical candies between the starburst and the skittles in the graphic above.)

The good news about all these top candies is that most of them are available in small, trick-or-treat-friendly sizes, which also comes in handy for retailers which may not typically sell candy. Let me explain...

How can retailers sell candy in their stores - especially if they don't typically sell food items?

You don't have to be a candy store to display and sell Halloween candy in your store. Many non-food stores make use of the checkout area to sell small goods which cater to shoppers' impulse-buy decisions, like candy, chapstick, mints, etc. (You can learn more about eh "cash wrap" concept here.)

One of the easiest ways to sell small items which you don't normally need to accommodate throughout the year, (like Halloween candy for example), is to add clear, acrylic merchandising display bowls like these to the tops of your existing stanchions. Many stores already make use of retractable belt barrier stanchions for their checkout lines. These attachable stanchion display bowls simply attach on top of the stanchions so you can sell Halloween candy in the checkout line right where customers are likely to make impulse-buy decisions, and without taking up floor space or changing your interior layout in any drastic way.

This kind of arrangement is convenient enough for any store to add Halloween candy to their inventory. Even clothing retailers or electronics stores for example. As you do your shopping this Halloween, you'll likely notice how many retailers are taking advantage of this kind of solution to sell candy in addition to their usual inventory.