Party City prepped for a disrupted Halloween season by scaling way back on its Halloween City pop-up stores. This year it opened just 25 stores, down more than 90% from 256 last year, though it added staff to each of its Halloween stores to help with fulfilling sales in other channels.
The retailer went into the season with clouds hanging over it. For one, its Halloween performance in 2019 was abysmal, with Party City caught off guard by a rapid shift of costume buyers to digital channels.
Another cloud was the holiday itself. The National Retail Federation and others projected Halloween product sales to fall this year as consumers adapted to social distancing and some municipalities banned traditional trick-or-treating altogether.
Source: Retail Dive