Some Target shoppers are making sure to have enough candy for those trick-or-treaters and costumes are still selling. Tommy White needed a second costume for his son Keenon. The deal was this: Wear a not-so-scary costume to school but for trick-or-treating he could wear something scarier.
"This is one the day they get a chance to be something different other than what it is. It's OK. I think the payoff comes back when you see the smiles on their faces," White said.
"We did anticipate that a lot of the schools would move their children's parties to this Monday, on this Halloween day, so we actually had an extra weekend of selling for Halloween. It was really busy this weekend," said Lee Crumb, Target.
It appears that even more pop-up Halloween stores were seen this year. The stores temporarily move into vacant retail space for a few weeks and will be gone after Halloween, but for the owner of Halloween Hallway, it has paid off.
"We're growing at a great pace and this year was our best year yet. We exceeded our projections so it was good," said Halloween Hallway owner Brian Bowers.
Halloween sales were expected to be up this year, but customers are still cautious. The average household is spending about $65 this year on Halloween decorations, candy and costumes.
Some big kids were gearing up for a Halloween party later at the Aragon Monday night with Widespread Panic.
"The economy hasn't affected my halloween outfit," said shopper John Desclos.
"It's OK to splurge," said shopper Emily Mayton. "it's the one time all year you get to be whatever you want, so you might as well do it."
Researchers at LJS Strategic Research say they don't expect any extra spending to continue.
"The data that we have are showing holiday spending being about flat, maybe up a little bit. Other analysts are coming out and they're saying that sales are down or flat. So what they're reporting for Halloween has no correlation to the holidays later on in December," said Margaret Mueller, LJS Strategic Research.
