Australians are tipped to spend a record $500 million on Halloween this year, according to research from the Australian Retailers Association and Roy Morgan, an 11 per cent jump on last year that works out to $103 for every person taking part. Spending is forecast to run highest in Victoria and Tasmania at $112 a head, ahead of New South Wales ($107) and South Australia ($102), with Queensland and Western Australia just under $100.
The spend itself isn’t the interesting part, according to Blake Wright, Sales Director for Brand & Agency at Shopfully. What stands out to him is that almost nobody has a default place to buy any of it.
No default store, yet
“A weekly grocery shop is a habit. Same store, same day, roughly the same basket,” Wright says. “A Halloween basket is not.” It’s a costume, face paint, lollies, a pumpkin and something for the front door, he says, and most households simply don’t have an established answer for where that comes from.
That gap shows up in the products driving engagement this year, among them kids’ costumes, hair accessories, pyjamas, pet costumes and confectionery, a basket that spans party stores, discount variety chains, department stores and supermarkets, with no single store type dominant.
The decision happens at home
Shoppers are also making that call well before they leave the house. Search terms related to Halloween on Shopfully’s marketplace were up 58 per cent year-on-year, and the increase began in September, more than a month out from the day itself.
It lines up with wider findings in Shopfully’s State of Shopping 2026 report, based on a survey of Australian shoppers, which found 67 per cent of respondents deliberately split their purchases across retailers to chase value, and 63 per cent always or often research online before they buy. Despite that digital research habit, preference for buying in a physical store climbed to 68 per cent, up from 41 per cent the year before, rising to 87 per cent specifically for food and drink.
“The research is digital. The purchase is physical,” Wright says. What’s still being worked out in between, he argues, is which store the shopper actually walks into.
Loyalty is already soft
That decision looks more winnable once you see how little loyalty shoppers have to begin with. Separate research cited by Retail News Asia found 91 per cent of Australians have switched brands for a better offer, and 79 per cent have gone to a different retailer entirely to get one.
Wright’s view is that most retail planning doesn’t account for this. Promotional pricing, shelf space and brand campaigns are generally built for a shopper who has already decided to be in a particular store. On a basket without a habit attached, he says, that decision hasn’t happened yet.
Discount retail is about to get crowded
The timing adds another layer of competition. Discount variety is a $2.3 billion category in Australia that has been largely flat for five years, according to IBISWorld figures, slipping at an annualised 0.5 per cent to 2025-26.
That’s shifting quickly. Canadian retailer Dollarama completed its acquisition of The Reject Shop’s 395 Australian stores in mid-2025 and has said it intends to grow that footprint to around 700 by 2034. Aldi now operates general merchandise through more than 600 Australian stores, while Big W faces pressure from both directions.
Wright argues the winners in that environment won’t necessarily be the cheapest retailers. “They will be the ones who were visible in the weeks before the occasion, when the shopper was still deciding where to go,” he says.
Halloween, in his view, is simply a clean test case because the date is fixed and the basket unfamiliar, but he says the same pattern shows up around Back to School, a first baby, a renovation or Christmas entertaining: any purchase without an established habit leaves the retailer decision open, and usually worth more per trip than routine shopping.