Halloween Comes Early. Retailers Push Spooky Merchandise Before Summer Ends

For years, people have complained about how fast winter holiday merchandise made it into stores. Now another holiday has joined the earliness trend. Fast on the heels of Prime Day, and while we are still in the heart of summer and back-to-school season, many large retailers are pushing Halloween merchandise. The trend even has its own name, Summerween, inspired by celebrations seen on the show Gravity Falls.

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Costco COST released its fall-themed merchandise toward the end of July, and influencers immediately responded, posting about the Halloween pillows with ghosts, pumpkins and bats. Costco also has a massive skeleton that has glowing red eyes and appears to be emerging from the ground. The decoration, called the Giant Ground Breaking Skeleton, has LED glowing eyes and a motion sensor that is activated to play spooky sounds. Not to be left out of the fun, Target TGT also announced its collection of Halloween décor in July with a line built around its popular pumpkin ghoul decoration.

Home Depot HD first went viral five years ago with a 12-foot skeleton decoration. The skeleton, dubbed Skelly, became popular for more than Halloween, with many purchasers decorating it for other seasons as well. This year, Home Depot launched its spooky décor in the middle of July. Offerings feature a Seven-foot dog skeleton companion for the original skeleton, a 12-foot levitating grim reaper, and a variety of seven-foot-tall animated decorations styled as a pirate, a vampire, and Frankenstein's monster. Halloween has become an important revenue driver for Home Depot. Last year was another record Halloween sales event for the company, both in stores and online. Home Depot sells the items online now but doesn't roll out the full décor line in stores until Labor Day to avoid customer fatigue. 

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Home Depot rival Lowe's LOW has found its own unique take on the Halloween trend. In July, it debuted its haunted harbor collection. The nautical-themed selections include an inflatable octopus, a zombie fisherman, a sea witch, and a haunted talking sea captain.

Fall-themed foods, including the ubiquitous pumpkin spice, have already appeared in grocery stores. Disney DIS has already started serving Halloween-themed treats like monster cupcakes and pumpkin-flavored muffins and has launched its Halloween festivities. At the end of July, Disney launched a Halloween-themed cup with Starbucks SBUX. Starbucks is famous for rolling out its fall-themed items when the summer sun is still blazing, but this year, it's almost late compared to other retailers. 

Halloween spending has surged in popularity in recent years. Last year, the National Retail Federation's survey of consumer spending estimated that people would spend $12.2 billion on Halloween, which is up from $10.6 billion the previous year. Putting items in stores early this year may also be a way to capitalize on consumer spending ahead of concerns over a shift in the economy. "It's clear that consumers have been interested in buying Halloween products earlier and earlier," Laura Champine, senior consumer analyst at Loop Capital Markets, told CNN. 

With retailers testing new calendar boundaries, the question is, how early is too early? For now, consumers seem to be embracing the trend. And for retailers, it's a savvy way to add a little boost to the third quarter without pushing winter holiday merchandise during the beach season.

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