With Halloween now over sales of Halloween decorations will be slow to non-existent for a while. I want to share with you one BIG mistake I made this year reselling Halloween decorations.
Home Depot and Lowe’s drop their new Halloween collections starting in July. Initially, they are just available to purchase online until the stores start putting them out near the end of August/early September.
The online drops in July sell out FAST. People are crazy about getting their new decorations. Anything hot is sold out within hours and even slightly popular items will sell out within 24 hours.
The online items will restock throughout August usually selling out fast every time until they are available in stores. Usually, by mid-September, you can only order online if your local store has them and you’re doing store pickup.
During the July and August drops I was able to order a few extra of some of the hottest decorations this year. They happened to be bigger items 8-foot outdoor decorations that come in big boxes. These things would sell out online in minutes.
As soon as I got them I listed them on Facebook marketplace. The boxes were too big to sell online shipping costs would be insane. I thought they would sell fast. Crickets….
I originally priced them $100 higher than I paid and even lowered the price to only $25 more than I paid. I didn’t sell any of them. I hardly even got messages from people interested in buying. What happened?
Well, I’m pretty sure I figured out the mistake I made. Every smaller Halloween decoration that I could ship I was able to sell online. When I went to my local Home Depot and Lowe’s they were completely stocked of the bigger 8-foot decorations I had.
This was even towards the end of September. My local stores just must have gotten plenty of the bigger items and since there were plenty to buy at the stores no one was searching for them on FB Marketplace.
Either that or the demand in my local area just wasn’t as high as other places. I’m in Halloween Facebook groups and some people in other locations were dying to get the 8-foot decorations I had but couldn’t find them.
I thought about just returning the 8-foot decorations but I’m going to keep them and see if they’ll eventually sell. If they aren’t going to be rereleased next year they will sell.
The lesson learned is to probably just stick to buying and reselling items that can be shipped. Storing these bigger items is a pain!