What are you going to do for Halloween? Whether you dress up as Shrunken Head Bob from Beetlejuice, dress your Barbie in pink, or go for the more traditional zombie scarecrow, costumes never go out of style. That's why most people have had at least a few spooky moments at a Spirit Halloween, the US-based costume shop that opens two or three months before the Halloween holiday on October 31 every year.

Steven Silverstein WG85, CEO of Spencer Gifts and Spirit Halloween Stores, met with Barbara Kahn and Americus Reed, marketing professors at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, to share insider Spirit retail strategies. You can listen to the entire episode on the professors page. Marketing Matters Podcast.

Here are business highlights from “Halloween Headquarters”:

🎃 Spirit Halloween, with 1,530 stores in the U.S. and Canada, is the only retail concept that disbands after October 31st each year and reopens the following summer – rolling starting August 1st. Silverstein and his team think of it as starting with a blank canvas, noting current trends and building from there. “We care deeply about the stories we tell,” he said, so you never know exactly what you’re going to get.

🎃 Unlike other retailers, Spirit Halloween is all about the experience and immersion. “We call it five senses retail. “I want you to see it, I want you to hear it, I want you to smell it, I want you to touch it, and I almost want you to taste it,” remarked Silverstein, a Wharton MBA. “That’s how Spirit thinks about our concept every year.”

🎃 As the founder of the pop-up store concept or temporary retail, Spirit Halloween needs to be flexible, which requires work. “We have an ideal layout and formula, so we're looking for big stores, and we're looking for visibility and opportunities like that. But depending on how much space is available, we have to ebb and flow,” Silverstein noted, adding that the company is considering four spaces for each store it leases to set up its annual retail locations.

🎃 Customer preferences require Spirit to take a unique marketing approach. “When we talk about marketing and creating CRM (customer relationship management), the customer’s last purchase is usually an indicator (of their next one),” Silverstein noted. For us, we think: “You were a pirate last year, what will you be now?” We are not interested in that specific element (of what you bought before) at all. We're glad you came and had a great time. I want to know who you are and I want you to go to the store and have a good time… every year it will be a different inspiration.”

🎃 As a retailer, Spirit Halloween strives to be tactile, engaging and interactive. “We want people to have a social experience (coming to our stores),” Silverstein said. “We want them to come together in groups and post their experiences online. This is the earned media we receive (advertising or exposure that the company does not have to pay for). We provide the background and (the clients do the rest).”

🎃 The logistics also look a little different. “We’re a Halloween outlet until the end. “Most seasonal stores are trying to abandon their concept early while we are still fully stocked (through Nov. 3),” Silverstein said. “Part of our model is that we have to carry over inventory from year to year and make sure we maintain that. We store it locally.”

🎃 Spirit Halloween exists in the gig economy. The company employs more than 250 permanent employees, including buyers, operators and employees along the supply chain. “Then we have the next level, which I call the field sales representatives or district sales managers. There are 400-450 of them, about 75% of whom come back to us each year and work from May to November,” Silverstein said. “They organize their world around return. “Former teachers, retired retailers and artists…we are all about our frontline workers,” and they represent our stories and are passionate about Halloween.

🎃 Doesn't this concept also work as a Christmas pop-up? Silverstein has heard this question before. And the company is considering Spirit Christmas. “Right now we’re just testing things out,” he noted. “Spirit creates a social experience for an event. Our brand is about bringing people into a practical environment. We talk about the way we used to shop for Christmas. We will have Santa Claus in stores. It will be the love and humor you find in Spirit. That is the reasoning. I’ll talk to you next year about how it goes.”