{"id":884,"date":"2015-12-03T22:42:54","date_gmt":"2015-12-04T03:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/peekaboo-pop-up-stores-spirit-halloween\/"},"modified":"2015-12-03T22:42:54","modified_gmt":"2015-12-04T03:42:54","slug":"peekaboo-pop-up-stores-spirit-halloween","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/peekaboo-pop-up-stores-spirit-halloween\/","title":{"rendered":"PeekaBOO Pop-up Stores: Spirit Halloween"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SPIRIT4\"O<\/strong>ne day a year, everyone in the United States, and parts of Canada, pretend to be someone (or something) else for the day\u2026 it\u2019s Halloween. Spirit Halloween started in 1983 and has been serving the holiday customer ever since, with all things Halloween and a primary focus on costumes. What makes it unique is that customers only ever see Sprit Halloweens stores\u2026 well\u2026 around Halloween.<\/p>\n


\nPop-up Stores<\/strong><\/span>
\nSpirit Halloween has a very strict come-and-go model of doing business, meaning that its stores are only operational, and in fact only exist, in the weeks before Halloween. Termed \u201cpop-up\u201d stores, Spirit Halloween and many of its competitors build stores in vacant store-fronts two months before the holiday, and then deconstruct them within days after. The strategy is to capitalize on the extremely seasonal shopping habits of costume and accessory customers in the weeks leading up to Halloween, while avoiding unnecessary costs for the remainder of the year from having to sit idle, or stock different merchandise. All of this is in an effort to serve the merchandise demand for what is essentially a single day of the year, while somehow remaining a sustainable business. Spirit Halloween has designed their operating model to do just that.<\/p>\n

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The Spirit Halloween Experience
\n\"SPIRIT3\"<\/strong><\/span>
\nFrank Pecera, Senior Director of Real Estate at Spirit Halloween, says of the Company\u2019s competitive advantage:
\nAnd the thing that sets us apart, too, from competition is our in-store experience. You just come into a Spirit Halloween store, and it\u2019s not just about the costumes. It\u2019s about the experience that we provide our customers within our stores. It\u2019s like a show that we put on when you come into a Spirit Halloween store.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is true, but Spirit Halloween does a lot of other things right. In order to open and close 1100+ stores across the 50 states and Canada every year, Frank and his team have to be on the prowl most of the year looking for locations for their stores. They target locations in the vicinity of other major retail stores to capitalize on the foot traffic. The typical yearly cycle is as follows:<\/p>\n