Unmasking The Truth Behind Spirit Halloween’s Pop-Up Success

It’s the spookiest time of year, and you know what that means! It’s time for your annual visit to that local pop-up store to buy your kids’ — or perhaps your — Halloween costumes. But have you ever wondered about how — or if — these stores make money? On the face of it, a pop-up Halloween store seems like an easy way to make a buck. You open for a few months, grab the holiday buyers, set up shop and count your money until the following fall.

Spirit Halloween — a national chain running Halloween pop-up stores for the past 40 years — expects to hire more than 40,000 seasonal workers this year and is launching a “record number of locations,” according to a recent press release. 40,000 employees? Sounds like a great business, right? But, as anyone in business will tell you — nothing is as easy as it seems. And when you start digging into the details, running a pop-up store is, in many ways, harder than running a year-round business. How so? If you’re thinking of doing something similar, first consider the issues.

Related: Pop-up Shop Marketing: a Quick How-to Guide