Thrift or Treat: Cheap Halloween costumes that are awesome, too
Consumers are planning to spend an average of $20.75 on Halloween outfits this year -- 14 percent less than in 2008, according to the National Retail Federation.
That's scary news for some retailers. But at low-cost thrift stores such as the non-profit Goodwill, where overall sales for the year through August were already up 6.9 percent over the same period in 2008, the outlook couldn't be much better.
And customers are lining up for the bargains.
"We're seeing a lot of new faces overall, and I would say it's due to people having less to spend," said Sheri Marzolf, vice president of marketing for Value Village, which stocked stores nationwide with 5 percent more new Halloween goods than in 2008. "We all anticipate that we'll have a very strong year."
Halloween has long been to thrift stores what Christmas is to all other retailers -- the season that counts. Even in good times, people would rather zombify a $5 used sweatshirt than the cardigan they got at the mall.
But like I said, it can be used to be a playful suggestive gift. Use it as a stocking stuffer or place it in a sexy funny card. Just don't buy lingerie and
And girls with a bit of a shoe thing going on will probably love Manolo Blahnik Drawings (Thames & Hudson, £9.99), a collection of Blahnik's coloured