The Halloween Spirit: How the retailer shows up each fall in vacant storefronts nationwide

One of the modern signs that the seasons are changing, at least on paper, are the first sightings of orange and yellow in the sky, though not on trees but in the country's strip malls.

The first sightings of Spirit Halloween's banner have become a tradition on par with the start of school and college football to signal that fall, and its accompanying "spooky season," are on the horizon.

"We've arrived at a point that we can inhabit all kinds of different locations and where all retailers will say location, location, location. In our case, Spirit Halloween is a sought-after destination," Spirit Halloween CEO Steven Silverstein said. "The fact is that we can as long as we can get the right (location), ultimately, hopefully, the Halloween enthusiast will find us."

Spirit started as a pop-up

The company opened its first door in 1983 at the Castro Valley Mall in Castro Valley, California. Even then the setup was temporary.

Joe Marver, the company's founder, opened the location after experimenting with the Halloween business in his women's apparel shop, according to a 2000 Los Angeles Times article.

"They laughed at me and put me in a corner hidden behind an old restaurant. When I did $100,000 in 30 days, they were astounded,” Marver told the Times.

In 1999, Spencer Gifts purchased Spirit from Marver.

While the company has no permanent location – all of the over 1,500 stores are pop-ups – the pull of costumes, props and candy provides Spirit a unique corner of the retail market.

"We have a sort of ubiquitous flexibility." Silverstein said. "Halloween crosses over so many boundaries, and when we think about it, we're sort of going through our process to identify locations. It really boils down to sort of where the availability is, where we can be most visible."

No space is too large – or small – for Spirit

Spirit seeks to put their stores in locations where there are more than approximately 35,000 people within a 3-to-5-mile radius and is flexible on the size of the store.

"We want to bring Halloween to as many communities as possible," Drew Griffiths, divisional vice president, marketing and social media for Spirit said. "While our ideal locations feature 5,000 to 50,000 square feet of sales floor space with awesome visibility, no store is too large – or too small."

The company has a year-round team that analyzes the available real estate and, while the company would not part with the recipe for the witches' brew that leads them to where they want to set up shop, Silverstein believes that the brand's name recognition is the key to succeeding despite the store's nomadic nature.

Halloween is an over $10 billion industry, according to the National Retail Federation, and despite the stores being transient, Spirit has made itself a permanent fixture of the holiday in the 40 years since it first opened.

'People follow … the sign'

"People follow as soon as that sign goes up, it doesn't matter where it goes, they'll find it," Kathleen McKeon, a district manager for Spirit said. "I have people that will drive over an hour and a half just to come to one of my locations."

Preparations for the stores begin in the middle of summer but once a build begins it is usually completed in under a fortnight.

"When you start, you're like, 'Wow, this entire building's empty.' It's 40,000 square feet. How are we going to get this accomplished?" McKeon said. "Each day, little by little, it gets done and then you step back and open on day nine or ten and you're just in disbelief and your team's really excited."

The ubiquity of locations in the casualties of the retail apocalypse, the shells of out-of-business retailers, has turned the company into somewhat of a meme.

While Silverstein wanted to frame the company's internet cache in the spirit of the holiday, he didn't necessarily shy away from it.

"We don't cultivate, it really happens organically," Silverstein said. "I think it's because we are the essential Halloween story."

What to know about Spirit Halloween

• Opened: 1983
• Founder: Joe Marver
• Sector: Seasonal Retail
• Locations: +1,500

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