Merchandising can either have zero effect on your Haunt or can have you swimming in extra funds to keep building your Attraction for the public. The key is to finding out what the public wants and or needs for when they are at your Haunt. Judging the public is tough at times but in the day of Social Media, it has become easier to get a pulse with surveys and things on your Social Media pages. Send out a few surveys to see what you should carry, will it work 100% of the time? No, but what really really does when you look at it.
Let us take a look into what we already know will sell in your Haunted Attraction.
#1. Hoodies! Towards the end of season, we all know that it can get damn chilly on those hayrides and when waiting in line. If you are not selling hoodies, you may as well just throw money into the fire pit. There is a great profit margin in the sale of hoodies. Hoodies retail from anywhere from 30 dollars to 60 dollars depending on the make of the hoodie. With the printing process now and how easy it is to get supplies of printed hoodies, there is zero reason not increase your volume of sales especially when the day starts off warm and night hits, there will be hundreds of people that will start to get cold and head into your shop to get warm. Why not sell them warmth while also marketing your brand?
#2. T shirts. Who does not have a bunch of T shirts from places they have been? People collect T shirts like baseball cards in the 1980's and since these are cheaper to produce your profit margin will be much higher creating an injection of profit into your builds and or animatornics. we cannot stress enough that sure there is a starting price to start selling merchandise, but you will recoup that 10 if not 100 fold by the end of the season. We suggest you produce two types of t shirts and hoodies. One with the year and one without. Why do you ask? Because the ones without the date, any that are not sold, you can sell next year and re coup any lose earnings from the sales of the previous year. The dated ones can also go on Ebay, there are people that buy almost anything and I guarantee you sell a few to die hard fans that may have missed your location this year.
#3.This last point really has to do with what type of Haunt you have. Some Haunts are more family friendly then others. If you cater more to the family of four then the usual Haunt nut this one is for you. Kids. As a Father of two crazy boys my self I can see things a little differently then the Haunt Freak side of me. A couple of new ideas I have are kind of different. Some kids are not ready for Haunted Attractions, the age always depends on the child. So apart from food and gift options maybe have a "daycare". Somewhere that the kids can be dropped to play video games or watch movies on Netflix on a projector. Something where the parents can run and get scared but you can still make a profit on the little ones. A few console systems and a projector really would not cost much especially if your charging per kid. Every parent I know with little ones would take advantage of this ten fold. You get more guests into your Haunt and make more money doing it. You need three or four volunteers or staff and set up an area for kids to do kid things with a Halloween theme. You could charge anywhere from 10 to 30 bucks per child and the parents will be out in the park spending more money or peeing their pants in your Attractions. Do not be afraid to cater to kids and watch your build fund grow.
That is what we have for Merchandising today at HH365. There are many more topics to cover and we hope you keep it here to HH365! Where Every Day Is Haunt Season!
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