Deloitte's Halloween survey shows bigger budgets, a split between comfortable and stretched shoppers, and a season that was largely shopped before October 1. For retailers and brands, the lesson is less about candy and costumes than about who owns the seasonal calendar, and when those people need to be hired.
Shoppers plan to spend an average of $285 per household on Halloween this year, including $219 at retailers and $66 on experiences, according to a Deloitte survey of 1,500 U.S. consumers reported by Retail Dive. About a third of shoppers (34%) expect to spend more than last year. The National Retail Federation puts total Halloween spending at $13.5 billion, up from $13.1 billion.
Halloween is small next to the winter holidays. What makes it useful is that it runs first. It shows how shoppers are pacing, where they are buying, and how they are paying, roughly seven weeks before Black Friday. We covered the size of the holiday season in Holiday Retail Sales Will Cross $1 Trillion for the First Time and the online mix in Adobe's $275.1B holiday eCommerce forecast. This year's Halloween data adds three signals: the season started earlier than most calendars assume, the shopper's wallet is split, and a single seasonal category now sells through more retail formats than one channel plan can cover.
Each finding in the survey points to a different part of the organization.
| What the Data Shows | The Hiring Read |
|---|---|
| 56% of shoppers planned to make Halloween purchases by the end of September, and 37% planned to finish most of their shopping before October 1. NRF found 49% planned to shop in September or earlier | The selling window now closes before many brands' October plans begin. Assortment, inventory, and promotion decisions have to be locked in during the summer, by people who were already in seat |
| 67% are buying in stores and about a third online. By format: grocery 55%, big box 47%, discount and dollar 40%, specialty Halloween stores 36% | One seasonal category sells through four formats at once. Brands need people who can win placement and execution at each, and retailers need the online assortment to match the shelf |
| About seven in ten can comfortably afford their Halloween spending, but one in five plan to use buy now, pay later or other financing, and 42% expect the economy to worsen | Two shoppers in one season. Pricing, promotion, and payment options have to serve both without giving away margin to the shopper who would have paid full price |
| Average planned spend: costumes and accessories $57, decorations $54, candy, food, and beverages $48, dining and social outings $32 | Spend splits between seasonal general merchandise and consumables, two categories with very different sourcing lead times and markdown risk |
The retailer examples in the Retail Dive coverage make the calendar point clearly. Home Depot introduced its Halfway to Halloween collection in April. Target refreshed 70% of its Halloween assortment with new items, landing in August. Neither of those outcomes was decided in the summer. A 70% newness rate means product development, design, and sourcing teams were working on this Halloween well over a year ago, with factory commitments made long before anyone knew how the 2026 consumer would feel.
Seasonal goods carry the hardest planning math in retail: long sourcing lead times, a short selling window, and almost no residual value after October 31. Buy too shallow and you miss the early shopper who is now done before October. Buy too deep and the leftover decor goes to deep markdown. That is why the seasonal buyer and the merchandise planner carry so much of the outcome, and why the people who build newness at the scale Target is attempting sit in Product Development rather than in marketing. We saw a version of the same challenge in Target's design-led Inside Out campaign: the campaign is only as good as the assortment behind it.
Halloween is decided long before October. By the time the shopper walks in, the assortment, the buy depth, and the markdown plan are already set, and so is the quality of the team that made them.
More than half of Halloween shoppers plan to buy at grocery stores, nearly half at big box retailers, 40% at discount and dollar stores, and over a third at specialty Halloween stores. For a brand selling candy, seasonal food, costumes, or decor, that is four sets of retailer calendars, display programs, promotional rules, and buyer expectations, often with the same product.
That is shopper and trade marketing work, and it is where seasonal programs most often break down. A trade marketing manager has to secure funding and promotional slots months in advance, while a shopper marketing manager has to make the display and in-store message work for a grocery shopper on a quick trip and a dollar store shopper on a tight budget. We explained the difference between the two roles in Shopper Marketing vs. Trade Marketing. Behind both sits the account relationship itself, which is why seasonal programs also depend on a strong Key Account Manager who can negotiate space and timing with each retailer.
On the retailer side, a third of Halloween shoppers buying online means the digital assortment, search, and on-site merchandising for a seasonal category need to be live as early as the stores. That ownership typically sits with an eCommerce or site management leader, and it is easy to underweight for a category that only sells for a few weeks.
Most Halloween shoppers say they can afford what they plan to buy. A meaningful minority cannot without help: one in five plan to finance their purchases, and 42% expect the economy to get worse. Retail Dive also cites a University of Southern California and Financial Health Network survey finding that fewer lower-income consumers paid bills on time over the past year, and that more than three in ten consumers are carrying debt they describe as unmanageable.
Serving both shoppers in the same season means deliberate price architecture: entry price points and value packs for the stretched shopper, premium decor and costumes for the comfortable one, and promotions that drive traffic without discounting what would have sold anyway. That is the job of a Director of Pricing and Revenue Management. It also lands on checkout. With financing showing up even in a $285 season, and Adobe forecasting $21.3 billion in buy now, pay later spending over the holidays, payment options and mobile checkout are revenue decisions, which is the territory of a Site Operations Manager.
Halloween closes out at the end of October, about a month before Black Friday. The sell-through, markdown rates, channel mix, and payment mix from this season are the earliest real behavioral data a retailer will have before the holiday peak, and Bain expects that peak to top $1 trillion for the first time, up 4.5%. Retailers with an analytics lead who can read those results in early November, and translate them into holiday promotion and inventory adjustments, will make better calls than retailers who wait for the January post-mortem. That capability sits in our Analytics & Data Science practice.
With Halloween about three weeks out, this season's outcome is mostly locked. The hiring question is about the next one. If Halloween 2027 product, sourcing, and promotional decisions are being made between now and next spring, the people who make them need to be hired in the first half of the year, not in the summer when the gap becomes visible. Senior planning and product development searches routinely take two to three months, as we covered in How Long Should It Take to Fill a Commerce Role in 2026?, which pushes the decision to start a search into Q4 or early Q1.
| Where the Season Is Won or Lost | The Role to Look At | Practice Area |
|---|---|---|
| Assortment newness and sourcing lead times | Seasonal Product Developer, Sourcing Manager | Product Development |
| Buy depth, sell-through, and markdowns | Seasonal Buyer, Merchandise Planner | Merchandising & Buying |
| Display and promotion across grocery, big box, and dollar | Shopper Marketing Manager, Trade Marketing Manager | Shopper & Trade Marketing |
| Retailer relationships and seasonal program commitments | Key Account Manager | Sales & Account Management |
| Price tiers, promotion depth, and margin | Director of Pricing and Promotions | Category Management |
| Online seasonal assortment and checkout | eCommerce Manager, Site Operations Manager | DTC Site Management |
| Reading sell-through ahead of the holiday peak | Analytics Lead | Analytics & Data Science |
Shoppers have already shown how this season will go: earlier, across more formats, and with two very different budgets in the same aisle. The retailers and brands that win next Halloween will be the ones who hire for that calendar now.
Deloitte's 2026 Halloween survey of 1,500 U.S. consumers found shoppers plan to spend an average of $285 per household, including $219 at retailers and $66 on experiences. About a third (34%) plan to spend more than last year. The National Retail Federation projects total Halloween spending of $13.5 billion, up from $13.1 billion the year before.
Earlier every year. Deloitte found 56% of shoppers planned to make Halloween purchases by the end of September, and 37% planned to finish most of their shopping before October 1. NRF found 49% planned to shop in September or earlier. Retailers also start early: Home Depot launched a Halfway to Halloween collection in April, and Target refreshed 70% of its Halloween assortment with new items in August.
About two-thirds (67%) of Halloween shoppers plan to buy in stores and about a third plan to buy online, according to Deloitte. By format, 55% plan to shop grocery stores, 47% big box stores, 40% discount and dollar stores, and 36% specialty Halloween stores. Brands selling seasonal products need programs that work across all of those formats at once.
Yes. Deloitte found one in five Halloween shoppers plan to use buy now, pay later or other financing. About seven in ten say they can comfortably afford their Halloween spending, but 42% expect the economy to worsen in the year ahead. Retailers are effectively serving two shoppers in the same season, which puts pressure on pricing tiers, promotions, and checkout payment options.
Seasonal events depend on a seasonal buyer or merchandise planner who sets buy depth and markdown plans, product development and sourcing talent who work a year or more ahead, shopper and trade marketing managers who run display and promotional programs across grocery, big box, and dollar retailers, a pricing and promotions lead who manages price tiers for different budgets, an eCommerce or site operations manager for the online assortment and checkout, and an analytics lead who reads sell-through in real time. Because seasonal decisions are made far in advance, these roles are best filled in the first half of the year.