Many NYC
retailers closed their doors early Sunday and remained shuttered on into
Tuesday as Hurricane Sandy made its way further inland along the Northeastern
coastline. The city’s best-known beauty retailers and specialty pop-up shops
were forced to close, and will likely miss out on the sales surge traditionally
generated by Halloween, especially at beauty counters. For October 2011,
consumers increased their spending on prestige makeup sets for lip color and
eye shadow palettes in anticipation of Halloween, according to Karen Grant, vice president and senior global
industry analyst, The NPD Group. Retailers
remaining closed due to the storm include Henri Bendel, Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy’s,
Bloomingdale’s midtown and SoHo and select Sephora stores.
According to a trend report by the National Retail Federation issued earlier in
the year, more Americans than ever were expected to be celebrating Halloween
this week, with seven in 10 celebrating the holiday, the most in NRF’s 10-year
survey history. Prior to the storm, celebrants had been expected to spend, on
average, almost $80 apiece on decorations, costumes and candy. Total spending
on the holiday was expected to reach $8 billion. No estimation by NRF has been
issued on how deeply sales will be impacted due to the
storm.