COLUMNIST
Just as the party and costume industry is a global market, so Covid-19 has affected suppliers and retailers around the world, including America. In his debut column for PPE Ed Avis – the executive director of the National Costumers Association – shares some of the major events of the past three months.
Above: Ed Avis is the executive director of the National Costumers Association. Contact him at executivedirector@costumers.org.
Focus on a Bricksand-Mortar Future “H alloween 2020 is finally over. It has to have been one of the most angst-riddled holidays in the history of the costume industry. At first everyone in the industry was all excited that Halloween was falling on a full-moon Saturday… then Covid blasted the world and all that excitement turned to fear. Trade organisations, including the National Costumers Association, worked overtime trying to salvage Halloween from Covid’s deadly grip. The NCA’s Help Halloween Happen campaign included tips on motivating local communities to celebrate a safe Halloween, the Halloween & Costume Association sponsored a big campaign to encourage trick-or-treating and the National Confectioners Association promoted all sorts of ideas for celebrating the season. So how did we do? Well, it really depends whom you talk to. At the NCA we surveyed our members and the results were not particularly encouraging – the majority of our members reported ‘much worse’ sales this Halloween compared to last year. Those who said they used some elements of the Help Halloween Happen campaign reported slightly better results, but overall it was a tough Halloween for our members. On the other hand, costume manufacturers reported very different results. I haven’t seen definitive numbers, but anecdotally many said they had a solid year. There were no blockbuster movies to encourage the sales of superhero or other character costumes, but people were still buying costumes to dress up at home. Companies making décor hit a home run this year – everyone wanted to decorate. Candy makers had similar results – the National Confectioners Association said sales were up 13% through 6 September. Clearly, being locked up at home hasn’t diminished anyone’s capacity for eating sweets! So why did the manufacturers show
such positive results when the members of the National Costumers Association did not? My theory is that our members – who are owners of bricks-and-mortar costume businesses – didn’t share in the manufacturers’ success because so much Halloween-related commerce moved online this year. People were afraid to go shopping because of Covid, but they still wanted costumes, so they bought from the web. That’s fine for the manufacturers, but bad news for shop owners. What can we do to help the retailers now? I see two paths. First, as an
association, the NCA needs to help our members improve their online sales. We have held webinars over the past year on this topic, but we need to do more; not only in how to set up an e-commerce shop, but also how to promote it via social media. But second, and more important, we need to continue helping our members persuade their communities to shop local. The shop local concept is widely appreciated these days, but Covid delivered a painful blow to the movement. Once Covid’s grip on retail is broken – hopefully the vaccine will accomplish that – we need to rebuild the belief that shopping in local stores is important. We’ll have to do that by reminding shoppers how much life a vibrant retail scene brings to a community. Remember when you could walk downtown and visit a dozen stores? That’s way more enjoyable than browsing a dozen e-commerce websites. And every purchase made locally supports local workers and business owners, as well as the overall vibrancy of a community. How can we do that? It will require efforts on the national and local scale. My association can help on the local scale by providing information and resources to our members. But I hope the large associations in the industry – whose members are primarily manufacturers – will also join this fight. Their members might have done well this Halloween with online sales, but overall everyone will do better if bricks-and-mortar stores remain vital. The more potential sales outlets a manufacturer has, the better the sales. Next Halloween is on a Sunday. That’s not as good as a Saturday, but just imagine having two nights of Halloween parties leading up to the actual holiday? That could be a lot of costumes sold and rented. Let’s hope the majority of them are sold and rented by bricks-and-mortar stores.” Left: Bricks-and-mortar stores need support from the whole industry. Below: Costumes – especially for children – sold well online this Halloween.
DECEMBER 2020 PROGRESSIVE PARTY EUROPE
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