February 2012

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	A display full of party merchandise at Party Magic & Gifts. “If it’s green and colorful and wearable” it works for St. Patrick’s Day, the store’s owner said.

s party stores nationwide constantly promote as many holidays, seasons, themes and special events as possible and pertinent to the specific identifiable interests of their own core customers, many of the basic and familiar seasonal special day favorites tend to ebb and flow with today’s more cautious customers, most party store veterans agree. Perfect examples of this are two of the oldest, highly-diverse special days, St. Patrick’s Day and Easter.

In a random survey of party stores about the significance of these two particular days to their overall annual business, it was clear that the former remains a strong adult time for both large and small green-themed parties, celebrations needing colorful costumes, horns and trinkets, while the latter is a more subdued family time usually resulting in less revenue for party stores. As a result, the former provides a much stronger profit-producer during the first quarter each year; thus party stores allocate considerable display space, OTB and inventory mix to St. Patrick’s Day, March 17.

For most surveyed, when it comes to Easter, they indicated some Easter merchandise is always included in their displays depending on the exact date each year, and they try to make sure they have available Easter decorations, tableware, baskets, with some reporting they also rent bunny costumes.