Halloween Is Now a Season, and It Collides With Prime Big Deal Days

If your store has no Halloween campaign running yet, the question worth answering is narrower than it looks: which days can still pay off.

https://insideretail.com.au/business/halloween-spending-reaches-an-all-time-high-at-13-5-billion-as-ai-plays-a-role-202610

What the week looks like

Amazon Prime Big Deal Days runs October 6 and 7. Walmart Fall Deals runs October 5 to 11. Target Circle takes October 6 and 7, with free-program members getting both days and paid Target 360 members shopping a day early, per modernretail.co.

Since Amazon added a fall Prime Day in 2022, the first week of October has become a big sale window, and October used to be a slow month. That makes October 5 to 11 the hardest week of the season for a small store to compete on price. Target alone cut prices on nearly 2,000 home and apparel products this fall, per retaildive.com.

Is it too late to launch?

Probably not, if you sell the season as a whole. NRF data cited by insideretail.com.au shows the share of consumers shopping before October has grown from 34% in 2016. This year's figure was not in the source, so the 2016 comparison is a direction only, and average spend is expected to reach $115.14 per person, about level with $114.45 in 2025.

Allison Zeller, NRF's VP of industry and consumer insights, said shoppers "continue to make Halloween a spending priority, but they are also approaching the season with affordability in mind," per insideretail.com.au. Home Depot, Michaels and Spirit Halloween have already launched Halloween promotions.

Pick a window after October 11

Stay out of October 5 to 11. That leaves October 12 to 30, between the end of Walmart Fall Deals and Halloween on October 31, as your window. Deloitte found one in five shoppers plan to use buy now, pay later or another installment option for holiday purchases, per retaildive.com, so putting payment terms on the product page competes without cutting price.

Make the item worth the money

Three moves are worth testing, and they are suggestions rather than measured results: pieces that still work after October 31, bundles with one clear total, and the installment option visible at checkout. The NRF survey cited this week points the same way: 34% of shoppers said they would look for items they can reuse or repurpose, 31% would compare prices and 26% would hunt for coupons, per insideretail.com.au.

Australian shoppers now arrive at big sale events knowing what they want and what they will pay, per insideretail.com.au. That research is Australian, not US.