Halloween 2025 shopping insights: Why CPG brands can’t rely on point-of-sale data alone

Is your inventory data playing tricks on shoppers?

Halloween candy hits shelves long before the leaves start to fall, but if your retail ecommerce experiences run on point-of-sale data alone, here’s the scary truth:

POS refreshes can take weeks, meaning eager shoppers might show up to empty shelves
Your ads could be driving spend into markets where products aren’t even available
Shoppers get spooked when the candy they crave is nowhere to be found...leaving the door open for your competition to steal their sweet tooth
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Halloween 2025 shopper insights

Insights from this year’s Halloween shopping season prove just how critical real-time visibility and inventory accuracy is:

61% of shoppers started their Halloween shopping between April and June of 2025, months before candy even hit peak displays
For those who waited, 43% kicked off in September
38% held out until October (a sharp 28% decrease from 2024)
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Why brands need to plan earlier

Shoppers are filling carts earlier than ever, which means brands need to plan with confidence well before the season peaks. Inaccurate paths to purchase or wasted ad impressions in out-of-stock regions carry a higher cost. Every misstep opens the door for competitors to win. When your data lags, you’re not just wasting spend, you’re losing ready-to-buy shoppers.

How Pear Commerce keeps brands ahead

At Pear, we scan inventory daily across 3,000+ retailers and 165,000+ stores, giving brands and their shoppers a real-time window into what’s actually on shelf.

The result? Store Locators, Shoppable PDPs, and Shoppable Recipes that are always accurate, and dynamic Pear Connect ads that maximize spend by only running where products are truly in stock.