Thread: Anyone look into opening a seasonal store?

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I was blindsided Monday during lunch when the owner of the company I work for asked for me to research opening a seasonal halloween store. Holy crap! I never would've guessed my love of halloween would follow me to work. (I'm an accountant)

So...I've been spending a good portion of the last 2 days researching and sending out a couple emails to some of the franchise companies. I have so many questions right now I don't know where to start. lol So I guess I'll start here...anybody know of any direction to definately NOT go?? Or any experiences they want to share?

TIA!

I just don't see how you can run a halloween store year round. I know there's one in Vegas and I'm guessing that it's the costumes that make that store viable year round. I think Spencers would be close to what you'd get as they carry the strobes and blacklights and stuff like that that could be used year round. I don't see that many heads on a hook being sold around Easter

Originally Posted by Scatterbrains

I just don't see how you can run a halloween store year round. I know there's one in Vegas and I'm guessing that it's the costumes that make that store viable year round. I think Spencers would be close to what you'd get as they carry the strobes and blacklights and stuff like that that could be used year round. I don't see that many heads on a hook being sold around Easter

Hm.

Yeah, you need something else to carry you year round, for sure. The one's I've seen work are year round Costume rental stores that ramp up and sell things on Halloween, stores that specialize in the SUPPLIES to build props, as us crazy builders are year round, and the party supply stores.

I'm sorry, I wasn't very clear. She's looking into a temporary store, one that's only open Sept. and Oct.

check this place out


http://www.christmastraditions.com/T...n/TradHall.htm

But that's a year round thing & mostly Christmas the rest of the year.

How to open a Halloween store.

I ran across a blog post that has lots of good facts and one huge error about opening a temporary Halloween store. The blog is called The Daily Apple and has been publishing on blogspot since 2004. The blog post is Apple #414: Those Halloween Stores.

I’ll get the error out of the way up front so you know to disregard the sales figures and profitability guesses in the post. The author claims a single Halloween Express store rung up sales of $70 million in 2 months (which is unfathomable). From that he deduces what you can make, conservatively:

* Now let’s say that the $70 million store is really unusual and it makes twice as much as any other Halloween store. So our store will only make $35 million.

* If we further assume that our rent is that really high $200K, that still leaves us with a profit of over $34 million. In two months.

To the author’s credit he diligently cites his sources in the footnotes. A closer look at a 2008 BizJournals source article reveals that the $70 million figure referred to the sales of the 180 store chain, not a single store:

…the business, even with a store open only from the end of September until early November, can be huge.

Owenton-based Halloween Express had about $70 million in sales for 2007, he said.

Halloween Express has 180 stores in 27 states, Sigretto said.

That would put the average gross sales per store at $388,888 for 2007 (as opposed to Daily Apple’s $34M )

The costs for going the franchise route? According to the Bizjournals article:

Franchisees pay a fee of $10,000 to buy the rights for the first store, including the rights to open more locations if first-year sales indicate the territory will support more stores, Sigretto said.

Franchisees typically invest a total of about $80,000 to open, including inventory. The stores typically make a profit by the second year, Sigretto said.

Despite the rather major gaffe in The Daily Apple post, there is a lot of industry and concept info in it about both independent and franchised Halloween retailing. (The errors may even be corrected by now as I pointed them out in a comment.)

Reminder about Stealth Earnings Claims: The Louisville Biz Journal article has a lot of good info on the Halloween Express franchise, though remember to always verify sales and profit numbers the company floats out to the press. Though it’s a grey area, Halloween Express officials should not be publicly making those claims outside of the Item 19 section of their Franchise Disclosure Document. It could be innocent, or it could be a red flag.

The article quoted in the above post:
http://dailyapple.blogspot.com/2009/...en-stores.html

Looks like a lot of initial investment (which is typical with a franchise I think) with returns in the second year or so. And as with any store it's all about LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION!!

Interesting bit there about them paying double or triple the usual rent. No wonder Spirit has such high prices!!

Originally Posted by Jackielantern

I'm sorry, I wasn't very clear. She's looking into a temporary store, one that's only open Sept. and Oct.

You were clear....I misread it.

RCIAG nailed it...it's about Location, Location, Location.

I've got two spirits and a halloween city within a ten minute drive.

I'd be interested to see if Spirit posts there individual store sales somewhere

Originally Posted by Jackielantern

I was blindsided Monday during lunch when the owner of the company I work for asked for me to research opening a seasonal halloween store. Holy crap! I never would've guessed my love of halloween would follow me to work. (I'm an accountant)

OHHHHHHHHHHHH I'm so jealous! You may have the coolest boss ever. That is my absolute dream plan! I must start buying Lotto tix!!!

Hey Jackie, we opened a store this year...drop me a PM and we can discuss it.

RCIAG - I found that article yesterday in my research. I thought it was pretty interesting.

I have some emails out to some of the franchises available, just waiting to hear back.

I even researched importing. GEEZ...that is complicated it seems. I have PAGES on import rules from US Custom and Border Patrol.

Pandora - lol My husband was jealous too. I'm just confused at this point!