A survey has indicated that British consumer spending has held firm over the Halloween period, with the event having become increasingly important to shoppers.
According to a poll conducted by Lightspeed Research on behalf of Retail Gazette, 83 per cent of participants said they had no intention of spending less in the run-up to Halloween 2011, although nearly half of them suggested they would not celebrate the event itself.
“As many as 47 per cent of consumers did not plan to celebrate Halloween this year but of those that did their spending seems to have bucked current high street trends,” said Ralph Risk, Lightspeed Research marketing director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “A large majority of the spending appears to be on children and this is probably what makes it more recession proof.”
However, half of those questioned said they intended to spend £10 or less on Halloween-themed products, while 25 per cent planned to spend between £11 and £25. More than three-quarters indicated they would spend most of their Halloween money on sweets for trick-or-treaters.
Waitrose recently announced that sales at its stores rose by 11.8 per cent in the week ending on October 22, as consumers prepared for Halloween.
