Halloween superstores open for the season in N.J., taking over abandoned buildings on busy highways

cheap sexy lingerie Wholesale Halloween Costumes Sexy Halloween Costumes OnlineHalloween superstores open for the season in N.J., taking over abandoned buildings on busy highways
Inside an old 6th Avenue Electronics store on Route 18 in East Brunswick, Kim Hanstein is putting the finishing touches on a fantastical costume shop, Halloween
Express.
Skeletons dangle from the ceiling, fangs gleam on the shelves and there’s fake blood everywhere, splattered on masks, props and ornaments. With a mischievous grin,
Hanstein shows off one of her new mechanical displays. A zombie clown with glowing crimson eyes creeps out of a jack in the box and cackles.
Hanstein will begin greeting customers at her morbid emporium on Tuesday, once she gets the blessing of the town’s fire marshal.
It still may be summer on the calendar but in the world of seasonal retail, October is in full effect. Dozens of costume stores are open for ghoulish business around
the state and scores more will be cropping up in giant empty buildings over the next two weeks. Many Spirit Halloween franchises unveiled their fall collection at the
end of August.
“As soon as I put the sign out, people started knocking on the door because they want first grab of the new costumes for this year,” said Hanstein, manager of
Halloween Adventure in East Brunswick. “Kids have such imaginations these days. They’ll come in and say, ‘I want to be a Pokemon zombie.’ It’s just the times.”
Halloween Adventure is one of several holiday costume chains that take over abandoned megastores. Failed businesses rise from the retail grave, transformed into
colorful labyrinths of superhero suits, princess gowns and vampire capes.
In Rochelle Park, Halloween Express operates out of a former DirectBuy warehouse. A massive black sign on Route 17 directs costume seekers to a rear parking lot behind
a shopping plaza. The store opened for the season last Thursday.
“It’s challenging to find the right location,” said Shaik Shoukat, a Halloween Express franchisee for the past four years. “You have to see the demographics of the
towns and after you find the store, you have to go through a lot of inspections, fire inspection, building inspection. If you don’t do all the inspections in the
right time, you cannot open the store.”
Hanstein said Halloween Adventure has scouts who scour the suburban landscape for vacant buildings on busy highways. They seek out vast spaces once occupied by dearly
departed chains like Borders, Circuit City and J&R Electronics.
Last year, Hanstein sold costumes in a shuttered David’s Bridal shop on Route 18 in East Brunswick. This year, she spent three months transforming a former 6th Avenue
Electronics outlet into a phantasmagoric hub.
“It’s weird but it works because when people ask for directions, I tell them I am at the old 6th Avenue Electronics,” said Hanstein. “Everybody knows where it is.
”
Halloween is big business, said Shoukat, to the degree that it’s almost eclipsing Christmas.
“People spend a lot of money on Halloween,” said Shoukat. “Every year, they want to dress up in a different way and be something different. The year that we had the
snowstorm on Halloween, people still were shopping. I had 200 people in the store and the power went out. We had to shut the store and let them go out. People didn’t
want to leave. They still wanted to buy. They wanted to give me their credit card numbers. They were saying, ‘I’ll give you the number and just give me the costume.
’ I had to tell them to leave.”
Hanstein said she expects costumes inspired by the movie “Frozen” to be the hot sellers this year. Last Halloween, there was a big demand for foam fingers, after
Miley Cyrus gave a provocative performance at the MTV Music Video Awards, Hanstein said.
“People come in and they tell me they want something that nobody has ever asked for before,” said Hainstein. “I’ve always loved Halloween. When my kids were
little, we always outdid it and we still do it big. Last year, I was Minnie Mouse. I had a big full head Minnie Mouse just like you would see in Disney. This year, I
haven’t decided yet but it will probably be Maleficent.”