Amazon US saw their Halloween confectionery sales rocket by 46% compared to October 2016, with four Mars items getting into the list of top 10 bestsellers.
According to figures from e-commerce data analysts One Click Retail, Amazon US raked in a whopping $13m in October 2017 confectionery sales alone, with $8m of that coming from chocolate.
This was 43% up from last year, while their non-chocolate sales shot up by 52% to $5m.
The VP at One Click Retail, Nathan Rigby, said that the whole sector grows faster year on year than the whole sweet section as a whole.
“Halloween candy is growing faster year on year than the ‘candy’ product group as a whole,” Rigby said.
Explaining this, Rigby suggested that the main bulk of growth in e-commerce confectionery is – perhaps unsurprisingly – coming around the key holidays in the year, such as Easter, Valentine’s Day, and Halloween, as consumers are trying to be healthier during the year, but let loose during those time periods.
He also said that the confectionery winner for Halloween 2017 was chocolate, with sales almost tripling in October compared to September.
However, Rigby also said that the chocolate world has had a significant shakeup, and that Mars have taken a lead on their competitors.
“But even within chocolate there has been a shakeup,” Rigby commented. “Hershey, the largest chocolate manufacturer in North America, supplied Amazon’s bestselling Halloween candy in 2016, a candy bar variety pack, as well as well as four other items in the top 10.
“In 2017, the former top seller has dropped to #5 and is now the only Hershey’s item appearing in the top 10.
“The real winner of this Halloween season is Mars, which holds the top four bestselling candy items overall, all of them variety packs.”
The bestselling item on Amazon in October 2017 was a Halloween-specific variety pack from Mars, which was new for 2017, and contained 400 pieces of confectionery items.
