With Halloween fast approaching, millions of Britons are preparing how they’ll spend the holiday. It is great news for retailers all over the country with Brits set to spend a mind-blowing £466m in British stores, surpassing the £442m amount set last year.
Figures collated by voucherbox.co.uk indicate that last year, people in Britain spent £148m on Halloween costumes and clothing. This year, the figure is set to rise to over £157m, with that being able to dress approximately 3.4m families in Halloween costumes. In 2014, we spent £92m on decorations and £70m on entertainment and stationary, with both of these figures set to exceed £136m and £75m respectively this year.
Sales of pumpkins have soared by more than 3000% since 2001, with around 45% of shoppers intending to purchase a pumpkin over the period this year.
In addition to the fact that Halloween has surpassed Valentine’s Day in the fact that it is the third biggest retail event in the UK, we are still spending an average of £6.92 less than the typical American. Brits are set to spend £7.17 per person, with a family of 4 expected to spend £28.68 on the holiday. To compare, the average UK family spend over £800 on Christmas and parents tend to spend over £500 on their children’s birthday.
Although Halloween seems to be growing rapidly in popularity, surveys show that over 50% of Britons are planning to ignore trick-or-treaters that come to their door. Surprisingly, only 42.4% of Brits are planning to hand out sweets and chocolates to trick-or-treaters, and 2.6% are planning to give out cash, with the remaining 4.6% of homeowners planning to turn away the excitable visitors.
According to a recent study, 37.1% of Brits are prepared to purchase a costume from a supermarket chain. Around 20% are said to look to Amazon, 14.3% will utilize discount website eBay and 14.3% will look to a discount supermarket. Surprisingly, only 11.4% of people will look to a fancy-dress shop specializing in costumes.
Shane Forster from Voucherbox.co.uk said, “Due to a visible pattern in recent years, the increasing popularity of Halloween in the UK comes as no surprise. However, the amount of money invested in this holiday is still slightly staggering. An estimated spend equal to £7.17 for each UK citizen is a real eye opener of how much the holiday has become accepted as part of British culture. Although 50% of individuals in 2014 stated they wouldn’t open the door to trick-or-treaters, the increase in spending indicates this is likely to be a percentage that lowers year on year. It will be interesting to see how this holiday is further adopted by the British public, and how spending relating to it develops in the coming years.”
