NYCEDC

Happy Halloween! The ghoulish holiday is almost upon us, and many NYC residents are hard at work preparing. Whether it’s by fashioning costumes for the Village Halloween Parade, selecting candy for trick-or-treaters, hauling pumpkins from the patch, or turning their homes into haunted houses—most NYC residents celebrate Halloween in some form. 

Retailers, in response, stock their shelves with Halloween-themed products to meet the demand. In addition to existing stores carrying Halloween merchandise, several Halloween pop-up shops appear in the months leading to the holiday. Ricky’s NYC, a beauty supply store, has opened about 25 Halloween pop-up stores in the City selling costumes and accessories. These temporary stores have nearly 1,000 seasonal employees.

All this Halloween shopping results in approximately $250 million in direct spending in the City, which equates to roughly $11.5 million in sales tax revenue to the City.

What have you purchased so far to celebrate All Hallows’ Eve?

Source: National Retail Federation

StatsBee is a new column featuring interesting statistics about NYC, written by economists at the Economic Research & Analysis department within NYCEDC’s Center for Economic Transformation. Photo credit: halloween-nyc.com