What's Hot for Halloween This Year?

With Halloween only five days away, retailers selling costumes and other holiday-related merchandise are heading into one of their busiest weekends of the season.

The most popular costumes for the fall holiday include a mix of traditional and contemporary characters.

At the new Roseville Goodwill store on Cleveland Avenue, manager Emily Bollensen said zombies, vampires and Twi-Light characters are among the top-selling favorites.

"This (Halloween) is our biggest selling season of the year," said Bollensen, whose thrift store recently celebrated its grand opening. "This is our Christmas."

Bollensen's store clerks said other popular costumes include bridal vampire dresses and Boy Scout uniforms.

At 2487 Fairview Ave. in Roseville, the store is expecting brisk consumer foot traffic, making it one of the  busiest weekends of the year, said Tony Livingston, store manager.

Livingston said Friday afternoon that superheroes and ninjas are among favorite costumes for boys while it's Disney and princess costumes for girls. For adults, favorite costumes include military garb and such things as bacon and eggs for couples, Livingston said.

Other popular costumes are morph suits, which are head-to-toe ensembles for characters like ninjas, mummies and zombies, he said. 

What Roseville retailers are seeing for favorite Halloween costumes mirrors the nation. According to the National Retail Federation, top adult costumes are  witches, vampires, Batman characters, pirates and zombies. For kids it is princesses, Batman, Spiderman, witches and Disney princess.

Whatever your favorite costume, Halloween has become a huge retail season, second only to the Christmas holiday season.

In a recent news release, the NRF said it expects a  record 170 million people plan to celebrate Halloween this year. According to the trade group's 2012 Halloween consumer spending survey, 71.5 percent of Americans plan to celebrate Halloween, up from 68.6 percent last year and the most in NRF’s 10-year survey history.

The trade said consumers are expected to spend more too; the average person will spend $79.82 on decorations, costumes and candy, up from $72.31 last year. Meanwhile, total U.S. Halloween spending is projected to reach $8 billion.

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