COLLECTION REVIEW: Zara Home Kids- Halloween 2023
I was running some errands a couple of days ago when I decided to go into the Zara flagship store on Queen’s Road to see if they Christmas collection was already in store, so I made my way to the third floor towards Zara Home.
The first Christmas items had indeed arrived (be on the lookout for that post), but what really caught my mind was their Halloween Kids Range.
I will say that, in the past, Halloween has seldom been one of my most profitable or popular ranges. The season is quite short, and unlike Easter which really encompasses at the very least 50 days, Halloween is only really celebrated on October 31st. Furthermore, Halloween-themed products are seldom sold after the holiday, which means excess stock is often sold at high discounts, and even that might not be sufficient to clear all goods, which often retails in carrying the inventory into next year, which is expensive and inefficient. Consequently, Halloween purchase orders are smaller, and most non-US retailers seldom take the risk of ordering multiple SKUs outside of party supplies and decoration. Zara, however, went all in for the holiday. Their international online store features a video dedicated solely to their Halloween range, and multiple kids costumes. Their cursor is also a cute little ghost whilst browsing this section, which is too cute for words.
Having a Halloween range brave for a retailer, let alone a fashion brand, which is why it was a bit surprising to find hard goods in Zara’s Home Kids. The Hong Kong online and physical store have a dedicated page just for Halloween, and feature items that cannot be found in Zara’s international website, namely toys, halloween-themed bakeware, and a very curated costume selection. Interestingly, two bubble toys are also part of this range, which is a bit odd considering this fidget toy peaked about two years ago.
The Halloween page for Zara Home Kids Hong Kong also features highly stylized photography and product shots to market this very specific range, which implies a heavy investment in this seasonal collection, which one again is unusual for most European retailers.
Coming back to my store visit, I must say the ragdolls are simply adorable and reminiscent of Picca Loulou and Meri Meri Dolls. I find a bit funny that the doll in the witch outfit was actually one of the SKUs I designed for Sergent Major’s 2023 Halloween collection a few months before our office closed, which make me feel somewhat validated, and tells me I was on the right track ;).
One could argue that since the dolls are quite cute, they could still be sold after the holiday. However, it’s always a bit awkward to see out-of-season products next to more recent collections, especially when customers are already used to exclusively seeing witches and mummies during the month of October!
The cookie stamps were also a brave choice for Zara. Christmas, rather than Halloween, is the season during which kids and adults alike bake cookies the most, and even then, it’s always a challenge selling this sort of item at a fashion retailer. For Christmas 2020, two French retailers I used to work with launched two cookie baking sets that had the most horrible of sell-through rates, even post-pandemic, so I’d be interested to know how this item fares for Zara!
Zara definitely loves taking risks, as tattoos were also part of the range. This is a very tricky item that must pass cosmetic grade testing, and which is easy to fail. Kids safety comes first, and European retailers are often advised by their own toy QA teams against doing kids cosmetics, especially when manufactured in China, due to the possible product recall concerns, so I was surprised to see them in the range, especially when Zara is still primarily an apparel retailer.
Overall, this year’s Halloween range is a winner. The range is cohesive, and stands out in the market for their sophisticated design, their muted color palette, and definitely their much higher price point.
Zara Home has approximately 500 stores worldwide, so I do wonder what their sell-through rate is for seasonal ranges, and if all toy and seasonal SKUs are evenly distributed across stores. I am even more curious to learn if Zara Home is bound to high MOQs, as this has always been, in my experience, a struggle, particularly when children fashion retailers dip their toes into new categories.
I would love to know their sales per week per store, as well as Zara Home Kids’ stock levels for their toy and seasonal ranges, but I doubt I’ll be able to see those numbers any time soon!
