Halloween Product and Keyword Research
It’s never too early to begin planning (and creating) your Halloween content. We start our Halloween research in early July now that major stores come out with their yearly new products so soon. Then we start filming, videoing, writing, blogging and creating our Halloween content in late July and early August.
Here are links to the Halloween shops at major retailers to help you spot trends and plan your product purchases, content calendars and spooky season content. We’ll include some of our notes and thoughts on each merchant’s Halloween offerings, too.
This article is a work in progress – come back daily to see updates throughout the spooky season.
Crate and Barrel
https://www.crateandbarrel.com/holiday/halloween/
Crate and Barrel specializes in modern Halloween decorations and entertaining/tabletop items. There are Halloween dishes, old fashioned glasses, and decorative pumpkins.
Themes include pumpkins and ghosts. Colors mainly include white, cream, black and orange.
Summary:
Crate and Barrel has limited new items available as of this writing in late July 2024.
Michaels Crafts
https://www.michaels.com/shop/holidays-occasions/halloween/lemax-spooky-town-collection
Right now Michaels is featuring Lemax Spooky Town (lit Halloween village houses) and Hippie Hallow (pink and orange pastel items). Items are in stores, but not necessarily showcased on the website right now.
Coming soon to the web – Midnight Moon, Haunted Forest and Hocus Pocus.
Summary:
Go in person to get trends and product research at Michaels Crafts brick and mortar stores. The really good stuff will sell out by the first week of August, to be honest.
Pottery Barn
https://www.potterybarn.com/shop/holiday-decor/holiday-decor-halloween/
Themes:
“Bone Appetit” – Scarier tabletop items, including a massive skull wine chiller, and pewter skeleton serving pieces and drinkware.
“Creature Comforts” – Darling textural throw pillows shaped like jack o’lanterns and ghosts. One of the pillows takes batteries and lights up. The “Peek-a-Boo Cat Pillow” is unique and unusual.
“Eat, Drink and Be Scary” – Autumn themed and cutesey Halloween tabletop items. Lots of gourd-shaped bowls and mugs, plus ghost mugs. There’s an impressive oversized “Haunted House party bucket” similar to their ceramic haunted house cookie jar last year. They’ve woven some of their pre-existing galvanized steel tiered serving trays into their tablescapes. A few white stoneware cheery smiling ghost serving pieces are part of the offerings.
“Enter if you Dare” features spooky or botanical pieces for your front door, including giant light up spiders, faux pumpkins, LED candles, and a harvest wreath. There are also some new metal haunted house lanterns that look pretty similar to every one else’s pieces.
“That’s the Spirit” – Cheerful, tall, flowy ghosts that light up.
Pottery Barn’s color schemes this year are, unsurprisingly, black and orange, with white and ivory mixed in.
Standout new pieces include the life-sized “Lit Mr. Bones” which can come in pink, ivory or black; Halloween themed Fair Isle style throw blankets for the living room; ceramic black haunted houses for decor; the black Scary Squad glow in the dark haunted house pillow; a haunted house Halloween countdown calendar; and the aluminum ghost candy bowl.
You can re-use Pottery Barn’s nicely sized faux pumpkins and gourds in Thanksgiving and autumn photo shoots and product content as well.
This year’s figural pumpkin candles are glitzy and elegant. There are rattan style woven pumpkins and pomegranate wreaths you could work into cottagecore or Harvest content.
There are only a couple of new Harry Potter themed Halloween decorations, such as this Lit Dementor.
Summary:
Pottery Barn has gone all in this year on jack ‘o lanterns and pumpkins, skeletons, ghosts, and spiders. They offer a choice between elegant spooky or cutesy ghosts. One could use Pottery Barn’s Halloween decor for elegant soirees or kid-friendly gatherings. There are a couple of bats, but no vampires or witches in sight. While they offer a sheet set, the majority of items are either for dining room, living room or front patio.
Sur la Table
https://www.surlatable.com/halloween/
Themes:
Pumpkins, skeletons, and ghosts.
Sur la Table doesn’t come out with as many new custom Halloween items as the other stores, and they carry items by other companies. They’re carrying repeat items from last year, such as the Lodge cast iron sugar skull pan and pumpkin cocottes.
As this is primarily a kitchen store, you can expect pumpkin Dutch ovens, skeleton aprons, and skull tabletop items. There are ghost mini waffle makers, skull ice cube molds, and other useful items. The oversized jack o’ lantern cookie cutter is my personal favorite.
A few plaid potholders and kitchen towels round out their Harvest and Halloween offerings for people looking for homey kitchen items.
Summary:
I’m actually disappointed by Sur la Table’s lackluster offerings this year, and hope that their company isn’t struggling.
Target
https://www.target.com/c/halloween/-/N-5xt2o
Target has a huge collection of Halloween decor products custom made for them. They also carry an enormous amount of Halloween products by other manufacturers. They sell Halloween costumes, Halloween makeup, Halloween indoor decor, tons of Halloween inflatables for outdoors, Halloween party supplies, and of course Halloween candy. I love that they also have a section for Halloween clothes that aren’t costumes.
Target’s “Hyde & Eek! Boutique” showcases their custom Halloween items. This year there’s a line of “Featherly friends” in neon glow colors; felt bats and birds; pumpkins and jack o’ lanterns; skeletons and dead animal bones props; light up crystal balls and jack o’ lanterns; and this year’s animated spooky telephone. One of the more unusual items is the vampire pumpkin, which lights up. Many of Target’s items light up and make noise or move or all three. Target continues their tradition of offering cutesey wooden mantel decor houses and figures. There’s a shearling jack o’ lantern pillow similar to one at Pottery Barn, but Target’s doesn’t light up.
Themes include witches, pumpkins, jack o’lanterns, bats, skeletons, a few haunted houses, and the occasional black cat. There are a few blow mold items, such as this lit blow mold pumpkin in neon green.
Color schemes include bone white, black and orange (of course), neon orange and neon pink. There are a few green and white plaid items and a green velvet witch’s hat decor piece. A standout item is the neon orange and hot pink felt Halloween wreath with smiling skulls.
Target’s outdoor decor rivals Home Depot’s. There are lots of creepy skeletons, inflatables over six feet tall, and scary rather than cutesey decor. A standout item is the eleven foot LED skull archway in green. Their Halloween lighting offers the broadest selection in the US that I know of (Home Depot doesn’t even come close). String lights, flickering lights, garlands and light up signs are among their offerings.
The costume department at Target has basically the same costumes as everywhere else, perhaps with more light-up costumes and glow in the dark items.
Summary:
Target is a leader in Halloween trends. With the ability to obtain Target.com affiliate links from many networks, it would be good to focus your holiday content creation efforts on products from this site.
TJ Maxx and Marshalls
https://tjmaxx.tjx.com/store/shop/home-shop-by-category-halloween/_/N-4017726405
https://www.marshalls.com/us/store/shop/home-home-halloween/_/N-4107619346
TJ Maxx currently has 109 Halloween items showcased on their website. There are spooky beaded placemats, Halloween throws, Hello Kitty and Peanuts Halloween items, glitzy skulls, Halloween dishes, Halloween candy bowls, wine goblets and mugs, and plush pumpkin pillows.
Marshalls has similar decor, perhaps with a few more Day of the Dead items than TJ Maxx. Some of the brands featured here are Martha Stewart, Cupcakes & Cashmere, Nightmare Before Christmas and Christian Lacroix.
West Elm
https://www.westelm.com/shop/holidays/halloween/
West Elm’s theme is “Spirited Style.” They feature modern, chic and unusual statement pieces, Halloween decor and tabletop items.
The main colors from West Elm for this Halloween season are black, taupe, and ivory, punctuated by terracotta orange. Many of their colors are muted, but some of the pumpkin and jack o’ lantern items are shiny.
Themes include witches, snakes, skulls, and magical imagery such as the moon, palmistry hand, and a staring eye.
A standout item is the Terracotta Flower Skeleton object. I also haven’t seen anything elsewhere that’s similar to their Decorative Spooky Paper Pumpkins.
Summary:
West Elm has specialized in Halloween barware and serving ware, plus large statement pieces for decorating in front of mantels or front doors.
Williams Sonoma
https://www.williams-sonoma.com/shop/holidays/halloween/
Themes:
Haunted Happy Hour with Juliana Mcintosh – She shares some spooky cocktail recipes that tie into Williams Sonoma’s drinks glasses, cocktail items and barware.
Spooky Soiree – Crows, snakes and witches. For example, these witch salad plates.
Trick or Treat Yourself – Williams Sonoma is always known for their custom created specialty seasonal candies, desserts and cookies.
Williams Sonoma also carries tons of specialty Halloween bakeware, barware, garden and home decor items, tabletop and food items.
In the garden decor area, a standout item is their topiary witch. The rest is pre-lit faux Halloween trees, and wreaths.
Standout food items include their Halloween countdown calendar, pre-baked and decorated Halloween cookies, and the very on-trend Halloween chocolate board. There’s a cute, but not unique, DIY Halloween haunted house cookie kit. I’d like to hear more information on the Halloween slice and bake cookies – do they arrive frozen, as I assume?
Williams Sonoma is at the forefront of this year’s breakable Halloween chocolates trend. Their breakable chocolate bat and pumpkin spill out candies when whacked with the small mallet that’s provided with the purchase.They also carry a set of three breakable chocolate skulls.
Williams Sonoma offers a few showstopper Halloween cakes, including a pumpkin cake you could use for Harvest themes, a bat cake, and a ghostly red velvet cake. I’ll probably bake my own, but you might find a buyer, given good product videos and content marketing.
Interesting and unique tabletop items include this figural witch mug, a white marble ghost cheese board, and also a black marble bat cheese board. This year’s cauldron coffee mugs are chunky and seem more like soup bowls, except they also have “Cauldron stoneware soup bowls” which don’t really look like cauldrons to me.
Over in the bar section, there are elegant black and copper wine glasses, stunning packaging on the Vampire Punch Cocktail Mix bottle, pewter Witch’s Broom stirring sticks, and a pumpkin punch bowl you could re-use for Harvest, Autumn and Thanksgiving motifs.
Instead of Harry Potter like every company for the past couple of years, Williams Sonoma has partnered with Snoopy and Peanuts, the comic franchise.
In the decor arena, there’s a pre-lit lifesize skeleton called Madame Bonesworth, but I prefer the pre-lit skeletons at Pottery Barn for their look and amount of lights.
Summary:
Williams Sonoma has a LOT of unique custom products. They feature lots of ghosts and skeletons, and also witches and vampires. Their focus is on gourmet Halloween foods, and on elegant barware and tableware.
World Market
https://www.worldmarket.com/c/holidays/halloween/
World Market does not have their new 2024 Halloween items on their website yet, shockingly. For trendspotting research, see their Fall Shop instead in the meantime.
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Happy researching,
Creator Inspiration