Going Big for the October Season

Halloween Decorations at Hardware Stores

Hardware stores are mainstays for basic holiday décor, especially lights and DIY supplies. But this past Halloween, demand was heavily contingent on the pandemic mood.

In the historic Boston neighborhood of Beacon Hill, crowds celebrated the first Halloween since pandemic lockdowns with “crazy black and orange lights, spotlights, and spider webs everywhere,” said Jack Gurnon , owner of Charles Street Supply. “Beacon Hill closes the street at 4 p.m. on Halloween so all the little kids and neighbors can come out. Everyone decorates their house, and they want the exterior to look scary. We sell hundreds of bags of that fake cobweb stuff.”

There was no trick or treating last year in Beacon Hill, nor the usual bell ringing and caroling over Christmas. So this year, with many vaccinated, locals were in the mood to celebrate. Gurnon’s wife, CoOwner Cassie, decorated sidewalk-facing windows with a spooky owl theme at the 2,100-square-foot store. Sales of everything from orange lights to yellow caution tape and clear trash bags quadrupled from last year’s Halloween revenue.

That’s not to say there weren’t challenges, such as supply chain disruptions. “We can’t get anything in,” complained Gurnon, whose family has run Charles Street Supply for 75 years.

Demand for Christmas merchandise was strong all fall, but many wholesalers sold out long before Halloween, forcing the Gurnons to search for new vendors. “People are learning to improvise, to switch brands — ‘It’s not brand A, so I’ll go with brand B,’” the retailer noted. “I believe the supply chain will loosen up and I’ll be getting more inventory, so people won’t be panic buying anymore.”

It was a different scene in San Francisco, a city that

“…I believe the supply chain will loosen up and I’ll be getting more inventory, so people won’t be panic buying anymore.” gained a reputation for stringent COVID precautions. “Halloween was almost non-existent this year,” reflected Co-Owner Steve Smith of Robert’s Hardware. Even before the pandemic, Smith reflected that several major events were canceled due to safety issues; more recently, restaurants and bars declined to throw their usual Halloween parties, and trick-or-treating has been minimal. “That did put kind of a damper on Halloween over the past number of years,” Smith reflected. “There was a little bit of décor, and everything was very local.”

- Jack Gurnon, Charles Street Supply, Beacon Hill, Boston, Mass.

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