BRITISH RETAILERS ARE BANKING ON A SALES SURGE THIS HALLOWEEN

USPA NEWS - British supermarkets are banking on a sales surge this Halloween. The celebration is the UK´s second-biggest party night after New Year´s Eve, say analysts at Conlumino, and some supermarkets expect a sales boost of up to 20% this year because the event falls on a Saturday...

British supermarkets are banking on a sales surge this Halloween. The celebration is the UK´s second-biggest party night after New Year´s Eve, say analysts at Conlumino, and some supermarkets expect a sales boost of up to 20% this year because the event falls on a Saturday.


A large reason for this trend is that those who grew up enjoying Halloween from the 1990s onwards have grown up and are likely to now celebrate it with their children, either throwing parties or taking them 'trick or treating.'

With Halloween falling on a Saturday this year - and with the rugby world cup final on the same day -many retail experts believe 2015 will see a huge boom in the amount spent on items such as costumes, alcohol, sweets and pumpkins as people turn it into a huge weekend-long party.

The retail industry is keen to promote Halloween as shoppers have proved increasingly willing to spend more around an event. Tesco´s Halloween buyer, Bryony Watson, said: 'Halloween has doubled in size over the past 10 years. As this one falls on a Saturday, we believe it could be the biggest the UK has ever seen.'

Asda said it had more than tripled its stocks of costumes this year and bought nearly 60% more makeup as it expected Halloween sales across all categories to rise by 20%. Sainsbury´s said it had bought 30% more adult costumes than last year and 22% more non-food Halloween-related products. Angels Fancy Dress, the UK´s largest costume hire company, said it expected to ring up more than £2m of sales over Halloween, slightly up on last year and more than double the amount taken in 2007. (The Guardian)

Customs now associated with Halloween have their origins in an ancient Celtic festival called Samhain (pronounced "sow'inn"), meaning summer's end. The Celts believed this was the time when the veil between this world and the next was at its thinnest, allowing the spirits of the dead to move freely among the living. It was one of the four major seasonal holidays celebrated in Celtic Ireland and Scotland, and took place around 1 November.

On the night before All Hallows' Day, which was marked with a feast, Christians would attend a vigil to pray for the souls of the dead and commemorate the saints believed to be in heaven. This event, known as All Hallows' Eve, became Halloween. By the Middle Ages, this tradition had evolved into an elaborate ritual, with criers dressed in black garb walking the streets to call upon the faithful to pray for the dead ““ it must have been an unnerving sight to early Christians, lending an eerie tone to the holy day. (The Week)

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