Beloved Halloween store shuts over tariffs, cancels costume orders | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

For many people, Halloween is one of the biggest holidays of the year, with costumes, candy, and trick-or-treating.

It can also be an expensive holiday, with the National Retail Federation estimating that Halloween is going to cost a record amount this year, with spending hitting $13.1 billion.

Costumes are typically one of the biggest expenses that people incur. In fact, the NRF said costume spending alone will come in at around $4.3 billion. This includes costumes for both people and pets.

Finding the right costume can be challenging, and many people have a go-to store where they like to get their special outfit. Unfortunately, one beloved Halloween costume store has made the difficult decision not to continue selling costumes this year, even after customers have started to place orders.

Here’s what happened, and why customers have been left disappointed about their favorite store closing.

Costumes won’t be available from this store.

Image source&colon; Shutterstock

Tariffs cause the closure of iconic Halloween costume store

Unfortunately, KFOR reported recently that a favorite Halloween store won’t be offering costumes this year.

That store is Halloween Warehouse OKC. According to KFOR, the store started placing orders as usual, but quickly ran into a problem: Vendors told them prices were being raised, thanks to tariffs.

Store representative Tamara Crawford told KFOR:

It was anywhere between eight and 10 percent on our product, which may not seem like a lot, but for us, eight to 10 percent translates over to you know, 16 to 20 percent on our customers.

With prices going up so much, the company decided that the best thing to do would be to shut the door of its costume store this year.

Tariffs make costume price hikes unsustainable

Tariffs have been imposed on goods from China and other overseas countries, and Halloween Warehouse OKC routinely purchases its products from abroad because U.S. goods are too expensive.

The de minimis exemption, which allowed smaller orders to come in without tariffs, has also been eliminated.

The tariff-related rule changes, unfortunately, would have resulted in price hikes that were not sustainable, as Crawford explained:

What we were looking at for a children’s costume, which would have been anywhere between 25 and 30 dollars, it was looking like it was going to be closer to a 45 to 50 dollar range. We couldn’t really eat all of that ourselves, and we didn’t think that it was fair to our customers to have a product that was far overpriced from what they’re used to buying or even what the costumes themselves were worth.

Customers left disappointed as Halloween nears

Many customers were upset about the closure of the store, and with good reason. They were counting on Halloween Warehouse OKC to supply their custom holiday look. As Crawford told KFOR,

Some people come for their costumes every single year, so it’s disheartening to have them come in and to look so disappointed to see that we’re not open this year.

More Retail:

Customers did express their sadness about the closure of the costume shop, with many replying to the store’s Facebook post, including one user who said:

Oh no, that’s horrible news. I enjoy going to your store every year.

The good news is that the company’s pumpkin patch will still be open. There just won’t be costumes, as the costume store is shut down.

And although it isn’t entirely off the table, the closure may be permanent, as Crawford told KFOR she isn’t hopeful about reopening it.