(Filed Under wholesale Costume News). Ted Vayos, associate publisher of BODY, interviewed several Halloween costume retailers about their experiences in the market this past season. According to most, sales were better this year than those in the recent past. A number of store interviews will appear in this series over the next few weeks.

Halloween Mega Stores

Ted Vayos: How did your Halloween go this year?

Stephan LaRosa of Halloween Mega Stores: Halloween did very well for us this year. September felt a little slow but once October hit we were busy all month long. It was nice and spread out for us. It seemed like less people at first. I think September was slower than normal because people were tired of getting burnt with bad weather. It is probably still too early to know because we opened 17-18 stores this year but already a couple of shops have reported better numbers than last year, its nice to be able to see threw the costume racks. Over all sales were great and our inventory levels are definitely low.

Ted Vayos: How did sexy costumes sell this year?

Stephan LaRosa: Our business tends to lean more towards the scary but this year sexy costumes did very for us.

Ted Vayos: Who was your key suppliers this season for sexy costumes?

Stephan LaRosa: Leg Avenue’s Disney Line did amazing! Our customer definitely liked the longer stuff. Jasmine and Belle looked awesome, like a bridal dress. We had people coming in and asking for them by name. I don’t know what their doing but our customers want Leg Avenue. We sold Leg’s Disney Belle costume for 250$ we should have charged 500$ for what they were getting. They did an amazing job. We also did very well with Leg Avenues one piece cat suits, ninja, tiger, cougar, and swat. Their tight cat suits looked really good on our customers. Dreamgirl’s discount Alexa line did very well this season. Dreamgirl’s flapper dresses did very well for us this year. The mainstream customer is getting away from their ultra sexy costumes and is looking for something with more coverage that still looks sexy. We still get that customer from South Beach that wants the sexy two piece but most are looking for more coverage. Pirates also did well for us. We have Pirate events in the area and have customers walking out of the store with these costumes all year long. There wouldn’t be Halloween without Rubies. Their super heroes licensed costumes did well for us this year. Rubies shirt with cape costume was very popular and the Wonder Woman costume was asked for more this year than ever before.

Disguise’s sexy spider woman. The one piece looked great on customers. They really got the fit right.

Ted Vayos: What else sold well for you this season?

Stephan LaRosa: We did well with hats this year in every category. Leg Avenue’s little hats did very well for us. We also did well with JD Hats and Rubies hats this season. We do very well with Leg Avenue hosiery. We buy the whole line. We also bought their Raveware collection which did very well with the Ravers but I wish they did a better job on the packaging this line. We had to hang everything up because it came shipped in a bag. I did great with makeup. We got the new line from Ben Nye which customers asked for by name and we also sell Rubies generic makeup. We had several children’s costumes stand out this year. We sold out of Minions very quickly and could not get any reorders. We sold a lot of mutant ninja turtles and super heroes this Halloween. Charades did a great job on the colored Ninja’s. It was very popular. California Costumes also did a great job this year. They offer customers some of the best quality costumes in the business. We did well with the Jester, Gladiator and many of their styles. Rasta Imposta’s funny stuff did well especially the really perverted ones. We also did well with Morph Suits from Forum and Rubies.

Ted Vayos: Who gave you the best buying advice for this season?

Stephan LaRosa: We march to the beat of our own drum.

Ted Vayos: What did not sell well this year?

Stephan LaRosa: The new Wizard of Oz didn’t do so well for us. The regular Dorothy did okay but most of the new characters did not sell well for us. We did not get the Wizard’s costume until the last week of Halloween so its really hard to say how that would have done for us this year. The only one of the new Oz group that sold well for us this season was the black wicked witch costume with the birds on it. The rest didn’t. Disguise’s iron woman didn’t sell well for us either.

more wholesale Costume News >>

Published 12-04-2013 by Ted Vayos