What Did Halloween 2020 look like for the Supply Chain?
As a Mom and owner of a supply chain software company, I had a lot of questions about how Halloween 2020 was going to go down such as
Will people even buy costumes, decor and candy knowing that Covid is front and center?
Transferring anything from one person to another is a no-no without serious sanitation practices in place, and
The CDC and officials across the nation have advised people to avoid traditional trick or treating.
My youngest child of 11 asked me to buy her a costume to which my reply was, “Why, there’s not going to be any trick-or-treating this year”, but seeing the look of disappointment on her face and hearing the, “Mom, we can still trick-or-treat at Grandma’s” had us quickly navigating our browser to the Spirit Halloween website AND made me think that costume sales might actually have a chance to move off the shelves and revenue could stay flat this year.
Candy, on the other hand, seems to be stuck on the shelves in our local stores. Even though we know that most of us eat about half of the Halloween candy we purchase ourselves, I know our household won’t be purchasing any candy this year since I am already desperately trying to lose my Covid weight from eating my way through the days for the past 7 months, plus we rarely get any trick-or-treaters when Covid isn’t in play! I fully expect candy sales to be down, but we could be surprised by traditional candy purchasing taking over practical thinking (still trying to convince myself that weight loss is practical). :)
My neighbors are pleasantly decorating their houses amid the pandemic, which passersby really appreciate. So, hey, maybe Halloween decor suppliers will stand a chance to clear their inventory, but my gut feel is that with the weather getting unexpectedly colder this week and people staying inside for that reason and Covid-19 reasons, we could experience a larger than expected dip in Halloween decor revenue.
Overall, I wish families the best in making this Halloween unique, fun and memorable while those in the costume, candy and Halloween decor business may have some inventory adjustments to make if my Covid guesses above are correct. Here is to navigating more uncertainty during Halloween 2020!
How Did Halloween 2020 End Up Going?
Here's a recap of our Halloween 2020...No candy, no pumpkins, no decorations. Sounds curmudgeony? A little, but when your Governor puts a kabosh on Trick-or-Treating due to recent increases in Covid cases, this result was somewhat expected. Candy purchases seemed unnecessary for two reasons: 1) I had read that 47% of households were not going to participate in any Halloween activity (https://www.wxyz.com/news/coronavirus/halloween-2020-trick-or-treating-expected-to-be-down-41-percent-study-shows), and 2) we typically don't have any trick-or-treaters and this year was no exception. In fact, we couldn't find any nearby neighbors who were even willing to put candy out on a table with no contact candy grabbing. We ended up going to a nearby neighborhood with 50+ homes where, in past years, almost every household participates in trick-or-treating and this year only THREE houses had candy out on tables for kids to grab and go!
At our house, we did not purchase or get out any of our Halloween decorations this year because the traditions we typically engage in were limited, if not prohibited by Covid restrictions and the overall mood to decorate and/or entertain/celebrate was absent. Hence, the reason we weren't motivated to buy and carve any pumpkins.
So, while we made the best of Halloween by being together as a family and getting some exercise by walking around our neighborhood, we sure missed out on our regular traditions. And based on the loads of candy and Halloween decor that was on clearance in stores the immediate days following Halloween in our area, I expect that most suppliers/retailers had to write off a lot of inventory to account for the lack of candy, decoration and possibly, costume sales this year.
Oh Covid, what's next?