Halloween formats drive seasonal sales, not categories

A QSR client was convinced they had a footfall problem. Turned out to be a conversion problem wearing a footfall costume. Plenty of people were already walking in. Not enough of them were ordering, or ordering more than the cheapest item. Before touching any ad spend, we looked at the in-store side — menu board clarity, pricing visibility, staff-facing signage for suggesting upsells. Small stuff. Moved the number before a single new rupee went to marketing. More traffic doesn't fix a conversion problem. It just means more people are noticing it. #QSRMarketing #RestaurantGrowth #ConversionRate #FoodServiceIndustry #InStoreExperience

A grocery store once tested that exact assumption with something as simple as a jam display, one table offering 24 flavours and another offering just 6, and the bigger table did pull a bigger crowd, 60 percent of shoppers stopped to browse it against 40 percent at the smaller one, but the actual purchase numbers told a completely different story, the 24 flavour table converted only 3 percent of the people who stopped, while the 6 flavour table converted 30 percent of them. More choice can quietly make the decision itself feel harder rather than easier, which is worth remembering the next time the instinct is to add another option to the page instead of cutting one. #MarketingPsychology #ConsumerBehaviour #ChoiceArchitecture #Gneutral

Hands up who's spotted the first Halloween products on convenience store shelves? ✋🎃   It got us thinking – which are the best-selling Halloween products over the past three years, do basket sizes get bigger in Halloween week and which categories see the biggest spikes?   So we went digging through our EPOS data from 13,000+ convenience stores and here's what we found:   🍬 Sugar confectionery dominates Halloween, accounting for 61% of all Halloween product spend in 2025 – up from 45% in 2023 📈 Swizzels Mummy Mix went from outside the top five in 2023 to the #1 Halloween product in 2025 💀 Haribo Sour Skeletons is the only product to hold a top-three spot every single year 🛒 Average basket spend rises 5–8% in Halloween week itself – a consistent pattern across all three years 🎃 Toys take the #2 category spot, accounting for around one in ten Halloween purchases   If you're an FMCG brand planning your convenience push this autumn, we can show you exactly how your products, and your competitors’, are performing across 13,000+ independent stores. Find out more here: https://bit.ly/4ycREsf   #FMCG #ConvenienceRetail #CategoryManagement #Halloween #RetailData   HARIBO UK Swizzels Gerry Hooper

September is here, and so is your monthly merch trend report. 🍂 Two categories are standing out this fall and both are worth paying attention to if you're planning your next branded merch order: Sling Bags — Hands-free, versatile, and showing up everywhere heading into fall. A customized sling bag is the kind of branded gift that goes from the office to the weekend without missing a beat. Get ahead of the trend before your competitors do. Functional Drinkware — The best branded gifts earn a permanent spot in someone's daily routine. Two-in-one drinkware, tumblers with built-in speakers, and bottle opener bases do exactly that. Staying ahead of merch trends means your brand stays visible in ways that actually resonate. #custommerch #merchtrends #corporategifts

Does this really work anymore? Super interesting post Olly Pinder questioning the use of Disney characters on these kids’ meals. To me Disney makes me think artificial, plastic, multicoloured… not an association I want to make with a meal for my children. And unlike some other products, meals need to be appealing to the parents, not the kids (who only see them once they’re on the plate). It’s what Little Dish have done so successfully - create a wholesome, natural, high quality product and brand that parents feel good, not guilty, about giving to their kids. As families search for healthier, wholesome, more honest options, perhaps the cartoon character tactic could be losing sway with parents?

Just having an inflatable or balloon for your business isn’t enough. You have to use them and if used right can really help make your brand stand out, make it fun and make it engaging. Paul Mummery, India Rawlin and the guys at TrueStart Coffee have really taken to using their Inflatable replica for OOH at events like Tough Mudder and Bristol Balloon Fiesta. Tours around supermarkets across the country and their own social media content.

FEATURE STORY 🎃 With Halloween falling on a Saturday this year, convenience retailers have a great opportunity to make the most of the occasion, using seasonal confectionery, eye-catching displays and in-store activity to drive footfall and boost basket spend. From creating dedicated Halloween displays to bringing the occasion to life with simple in-store activity, our latest feature explores how retailers can turn Halloween into a bigger trading moment. Read the full feature here: https://lnkd.in/erHxWWM5 #Halloween2026 #ConvenienceRetail #Retail #Confectionery #CStore Mars HARIBO UK Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

Halloween spending hit a record $13.1 billion last year, with candy alone accounting for close to $3.9 billion of it. Every dollar of that traces back to a pallet that had to land in a warehouse weeks or months before October 31. A Halloween line can span three temperature zones at once: frozen novelty treats, refrigerated party trays and dips, and ambient candy or packaging. All three peak in the same four-to-six-week window. All three need space booked before a date that doesn't move. Three questions actually decide whether that space plan holds up: Does the product have a life past November 1, or is it dead weight the moment the season ends? How short is the real selling window? And if the forecast is wrong, how fast can more space actually come online — weeks, or a scramble in October when everyone else is calling too? Most brands that get caught short in Halloween season aren't wrong about demand. Read More: https://lnkd.in/g7MxS3dj

Opening-ready is not dinner-ready. A clean case at 9 AM does not protect the customer shopping for dinner at 4 PM. The standard has to move with the clock. On the next deli walk: 1. Read the presentation the customer sees now. 2. Check freshness against the current selling window. 3. Compare production with the demand arriving now. 4. Assign the correction and return while the daypart can still be recovered. The better walk does not ask whether the deli was ready. It asks whether the deli is ready for the customer standing in front of it now. Subscribe free to The Backroom Brief. Subscribers receive the Store Walk Standard in the welcome email, followed by the weekly operator read every Friday: https://lnkd.in/gp32gtR5 What is the first dinner-readiness signal you check in Deli?

Sometimes the best product presentation starts with the occasion. 🍕 Pizza cutlery is a very specific product, for a very recognizable moment. So instead of presenting it as just another cutlery set, we created a pizza box activation for our customers. Simple. Recognizable. And immediately connected to the moment of use. That is what mental availability is about: making it easier for people to think of your brand when a relevant buying or usage occasion occurs. For us, this is an important part of building stronger brands. Not only developing good products, but creating the right associations around them. Make the occasion recognizable. Make the product relevant. Make the brand easier to remember.