Halloween is one of the biggest retail trends we’ve welcomed across the Atlantic in recent years. Last year, shoppers in the UK spent a staggering £295 million on Halloween paraphernalia, with 40% of all Brits splashing out on the spooky season.

Our insight into how Britain shops means we’ve been able to witness this trend grow first hand. In the first week of October last year, we saw searches for “Halloween” increase by 54% compared with the previous week, and in the four weeks leading up to Halloween, our users made an enormous 1.2 million Halloween-related searches.

With consumer engagement around this event reaching an all time high, brands this side of the pond can’t afford to lose out on what is rapidly becoming one of the country’s biggest seasonal celebrations. By following these few simple steps you should be well on the way to taking advantage of some of this year’s spooky spend.

Don’t hold back when it comes to age

When it comes to Halloween, it’s very easy for brands to focus their attention on the stereotypical shopper groups: parents buying scary costumes for excited children. In reality, the scope for engagement is much broader, and far less stereotypical.

Traditionally thought of as a children’s folly, fancy dress is something that now spans all generations, with adult costumes becoming even more popular than children’s on eBay.co.uk in the three weeks leading up to Halloween last year. What’s more, this isn’t even the young adults – shoppers aged between 40 and 49 were the most likely to be seen searching for “adults fancy dress” last year, followed by those aged between 50 and 59. And in the week running up to All Hallow’s Eve, even those in the 60+ age bracket made over 2,000 searches for Halloween items. It just goes to show that brands need to move away from pigeonholing their shoppers and look to shoppers of all ages and walks of life this Halloween.

Think beyond the obvious

Whilst Halloween may still be considered by many just an opportunity for the fancy dress and candy retailers, our data shows us that this simply is not the case. With a unique insight into how shoppers are behaving across all categories, we know that Halloween is no longer just about the trick or treating, and this means brands across a multitude of categories can become a part of the fun.

In the first week of October last year, searches for “fog machine” on eBay.co.uk rose by 30% and in the third week of the month, searches for outdoor Halloween items similarly rose by a third. Whilst searches for iconic scary films Scream and The Exorcist surged by 23% and 25% respectively in the week leading up to Halloween, shoppers also made more than 280 searches per hour for projectors to watch them on. For marketers, this highlights a clear halo effect triggered by the Halloween party atmosphere. At eBay our new Halloween Advanced Targeting tool helps brands to boost the impact of their campaigns at crowded times such as this, by pinpointing specific customers with hyper-targeted ads based on their previous observed shopping behaviours.

Halloween is undoubtedly having an unprecedented impact on consumer behaviour which, for brands who are in the right place at the right time, translates into a huge potential opportunity to inspire shoppers across of different categories, regardless of their age.

  

By Rob Bassett, head of UK and EU multinational advertising at eBay

 

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