It’s finally the best time of year for parents and kids, but the worst for department stores. Halloween decorations are on the shelves, and like every year, people are going crazy over them. Shelves were being restocked every single day after going bare from the decoration-needy customers.
Most stores in the New Market and Mount Airy area were hit hard this year and quickly ran out of stock.
Walmart and TJ Maxx are two businesses in the area where people frequently shop frequently for seasonal items. TJ Maxx began to sell out of everything very quickly, they started selling the items on October 1st, and ran low in just a week and a half.. Both customers and associates are having a really tough time dealing with it.
“Our main source of complaints this month have been from our lack of Halloween-themed items,” said TJ Maxx associate Charles “Lee” Cooley. “Most of the time we need to just be straightforward [with the customers] and move on.”
In 2023, 30% of home buyers were new homeowners. People who buy new homes tend to have no seasonal decorations and nothing to reuse. Inconveniently, the most out-of-stock items include the bigger animatronics that people place in front yards. These decorations have become one of the bigger problems for participating stores. These include 5-foot tall skeletons, Annabelle dolls and more.
“It’s [the store] been pretty busy and it seems that everyone wants the same things, decorations,” Cooley said.
Customer service employees report customers complaining about the store’s lack of decorations.
Not only are stores running out of everything, but due to religious reasons, some stores are refusing to sell decorations, which further limits the available inventory.
According to Business Insider, “Hobby Lobby’s CEO is a devout Christian, and some Christians view Halloween as a pagan Holiday and don’t celebrate it.”
LHS senior Jared Hopkins agreed that stores should have full support from their customers in their decision not to sell Halloween decor based on religious reasons.
“I believe stores should be able to have a choice to not sell Halloween decorations and costumes because of religious reasons,” said Hopkins. “I believe it’s a great example for someone standing up for something they believe in.”
Another LHS student, Elijah Costigan, agreed with Hopkins. He thinks that since customers have a right to shop at a store, the store has a right to choose what they want to sell.
Most people on Halloween would love to weather scariest or the freakiest costume that they can get their hands on. Most decide to go with the classic characters like a witch, or zombie. Some choose to be characters from their favorite movies like Spiderman, Sonic, Harry Potter characters, and maybe even some Pixar and Disney characters.
A lot of people think about their Halloween costume months in advance, and most kids are set on what they want to be in the summertime. This is exactly why it makes things so much harder to secure costumes around the actual holiday.
People who wait until the last minute to purchase a costume have the most trouble of all; they usually cannot find anything. Everything that people decide on months in advance are already shipped out and sold out.
At this point, the swarms are calming down. And for the most part, only the late shoppers are still out looking for more decorations or costumes.
It seems that most stores, such as TJ Maxx and HomeGoods, are already transitioning to Thanksgiving and Christmas decor. There may only be a week before Thanksgiving and fall decor is retired for the season, so for anyone looking to decorate their home, move quickly.
