Halloween is by far my favorite holiday of the year. When else do you have permission to don a costume and pretend to be someone else for a night? So it is with great interest that I peruse the most popular search term suggestions for costumes every year from the Hitwise sample of 10 million US internet users. I reported earlier in the season that ‘pirate costume’ captured the largest volume of searches, and that still holds true for the most recent four weeks:
Most searched for ‘costume’ terms, 4 weeks ending October 21, 2006
pirate costume
tinkerbell costume
wonder woman costume
jack sparrow costume
fairy costume
playboy bunny costume
dorothy costume
dog the bounty hunter costume
little red riding hood costume
jango fett costume
When I looked further into this year’s data versus last year, I noticed an increase in searches on terms related to ‘adult’ and ‘sexy’ costumes. Further investigation revealed that share of US searches for the term ‘adult costumes’ was up 209% for the four weeks ending October 21, 2006 versus the same four week period in 2005 (four weeks ending October 22, 2005). In addition, the share of searches for ‘sexy halloween costume’ was up 400% in the same period. You can see on the list above that searches for ‘playboy bunny costume’ and ‘dog the bounty hunter costume’ indicate a more adult bent to costume searching.

Not only are searches for ‘adult’ and ‘sexy’ costumes up over last year, visits to online costume retailers are up as well. The market share of visits to a custom category of 30 online costume retailers was up 38.5% for the week ending October 21, 2006 versus the week ending October 22, 2005.

I suspect that as consumers become more accustomed to online shopping, they are finding that the convenience of shopping online for costumes is a godsend. My Halloween shopping usually consists of at least a whole afternoon of combing racks at vintage stores for the perfect outfit, which usually has to be pieced together from various locations. Then a trip to the Halloween superstore, with its long lines, to find last minute make up and other accessories. This year, I bought my costume online, and my only in-store purchase was a ribbon for my hair. So simple! Now my only worry is that I will meet someone with exactly the same costume, since I’m not wearing a one-of-a kind vintage outfit. But I will have the experience of being Alice in a Wonderland of costumed partygoers for a night – and here’s a list of who I might see, based on the ten most popular search term suggestions for ‘adult costume’:
Most searched for ‘adult costume’ terms, 4 weeks ending October 21, 2006
adult pirate costume
adult tinkerbell costume
adult elmo costume
adult tigger costume
adult batman costume
adult ladybug costume
army adult costume
adult mermaid costume
adult care bear costume
adult belle costume
Surprisingly, this list did not have to be filtered for any ‘adult’ terms – I guess a lot people will be reverting to childhood for a day!