0:23 Kayla: We need to, like, codify how to start the episodes. Chris: So I think what we do is we turn on the microphone, we start recording, and then we talk. Kayla: But it's like, there's. It's hard to do. Chris: I'll go if I don't have to talk. Kayla: Yeah, I'll go if I don't have to talk. I have to talk, though. Chris: You do have to talk, because it's your turn, which is great, because then I don't have to do anything except sit over here and make snarky comments and plan my 20 year high school reunion, because it's been 20 years since. Kayla: You really date yourself like that. Chris: I mean, I would love to date myself. I'm hot. Kayla: Yeah, that's true. Okay, well, I'm Kayla.

1:04 Chris: I'm Chris. Kayla: This is culture. Just weird. Chris: It is. Kayla: Thank you for coming back. Chris: Yes. Thank you for listening. Oh, we do have a little bit of business. Kayla: What's our business? Tell us our business. Chris: We have two more. Kayla: Oh, shit. Chris: No, three more. Three more. Kayla: I can't pull anything up on my computer because I have one more. Chris: I know who they are in my head because I just know these things because they're that important. Kayla, three more Patreon supporters at the charismatic leader level? Kayla: Hell, yeah. Chris: One of them said, you don't need to shout me out, so we won't shout him out, but let's just call him Steve. Kayla: Okay, thanks, Steve. Chris: Because we've called him Steve before. Kayla: We have. Chris: If anybody wants to track down exactly who we're talking about. Kayla: Thanks, Steve. Chris: Another one is Paul. Thank you, Paul.

1:45 Kayla: Thanks, Paul. Chris: And another one is Mikayla. Thank you, Mikayla, who has also interacted with us a lot and is a super fan and has given us some good leads. Kayla: She's amazing. Chris: Oh, actually, did we talk about. Kayla: We did not talk about Mikayla's creative. Chris: Right? Because she responded to that. Kayla: Before we get into Mikayla's creative topic, I also just want to, like, briefly shout out our other Patreon supporters so far. We have addition. In addition to the three we just mentioned, we also have Pam, Becky, and Alyssa. Thank you again to everyone supporting us on Patreon. Thank you to everyone who's listening. Check out our Patreon. We're putting our shit. We're putting our bonus. Chris: Putting our shit there. Kayla: We're putting our outtakes there first before we put them on our.

2:25 Chris: Actually, that's kind of what outtakes are. Outtakes are kind of like, they're the shit. They're the shit that you have to take out, and then we say, hey, if you really like us, then do you want this crap? Kayla: Do you want our crap? Chris: Here you go. Kayla: We've also got like some polls going on over there. We're also posting our rough draft scripts that you can have like direct access to. So there's lot of cool stuff going on over there. So check out our Patreon. Chris: Yeah. So Mikayla emailed us to, actually, she'd emailed us before, and I'm not going to tell you the topic that she said that she suggested, because there's a possibility we will do it on the show. But then she emailed us again to talk about her creative endeavor, which is among other things, she does twitch streaming.

3:08 Kayla: Oh, nice. Chris: Which I think we might have talked about Twitch on the show before, but just in case you're not familiar, it's a streaming platform, which means that people basically go on there and they, for the most part, Twitch is, you're playing video games, right? And then you just have an audience of people that essentially go to that like you would go to like a. Kayla: YouTube page and it's basically live YouTube. Chris: Yeah, it's like live YouTube and you watch people play video games and you interact with them, and some of the more clever ones will be like, oh, you can, you know, play me in this video game live on the stream. And anyways, there's a whole bunch of stuff like that. But her channel is Twitch TV Geek create, which is spelled Geek create. It's geekcreate, but it shares a letter, so it's geekreate.

3:54 Kayla: Oh, I love that. That's so cute. Chris: And she also has geekreate, same exact spelling, geekreate.com, which I believe takes you to her twitch, but nice. Anyway, she says of her stream, I'm more of a chill streamer for people who want a break from the hyperactive in your face type streamer, which I totally know what those are like. Kayla: It's more my speed for sure. Chris: Yeah. So, yeah, and I checked it out, it's pretty cool. She played some magic arena. So I'm like already a fan. But I mean, obviously I would kick her ass, but I'm a fan. Kayla: I'm just saying, that's some big talk. Chris: I know, I love, I just have a unidirectional platform here to just talk shit.

4:34 Kayla: I'm gonna call you out. I don't think you could. I think she could never. Chris: Dude, I'm super good. Kayla: Well, either way, go check out geek create on Twitch support. Our super fan, Mikayla, she's amazing, and thank you for telling us about your creative project. Chris: Yeah. And that's a shout out to all of you who haven't yet. Email us, tell us about your thing. Tell us about your thing, and we'll do the same. Kayla: Your creative thing. Chris: Your creative thing. Not any other things. Only creative things. Kayla: All right, so is that. Are we done with our business? Chris: Yeah. No more business. Now onto. Kayla: We can move on to our episode proper. Chris: The actual episode. Kayla: Episode 16. So since the weather is turning, if you're in Los Angeles, it turned, and now it's kind of turning back, but one day it'll turn.

5:20 Chris: It went one degree colder. Kayla: It got down to 72, and now we're back up to 85. Okay, so since in some places, the weather's turning and we're officially in Halloween season, I want to do something a little bit on theme for this episode. Chris: Themed. Themed. Kayla: Themed. Chris: I love themes. Kayla: So it got me thinking. What cult or just weird topic could I do that would be relevant to the leaves changing, the air getting crisper, the day's getting shorter, the Halloween right around the corner, all the spooky shit. I didn't have to think about that for too long, because on my drive home from work one day when I was thinking about this, I passed what happens to be the most iconic symbol of the Halloween season. Wait, no, I actually passed four Reese's peanut butter cup. I've passed four Reese's peanut butter cups. Here you go. No, I am talking about, of course, the true harbinger of fall, spooky season, spirit Halloween stores.

6:12 Chris: Oh, actually, yeah. Kayla: You know what I'm talking about. Chris: Yeah. That's how you know it's fall. Kayla: Exactly. Chris: In places where the leaves don't change. Kayla: Right. I'll go ahead and say right now that this one is gonna be a two parter. First, we'll discuss the history and backdrop of spirit Halloween and set the stage. And next episode, we'll get into the nitty gritty details of the stores themselves and whatever weirdness that goes along with that. Chris: Awesome. Two parters are mathematically twice as good as one parters. Kayla: I believe you. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Is that how math works? Chris: That's how math works. Kayla: Thanks for teaching me math. Chris: It's just science. Kayla: Is it math or is it science? Chris: It's both. Kayla: Science. Chris: It's math. Science. Kayla: Science. Favorite topic in school. It's steam now, bitch. Chris: Yeah, I know.

6:53 Kayla: Okay, back to the topic at hand. Those temporary Halloween megastore pop ups that seemingly show up overnight and then vanish as quickly as they came. You and I have been to one once. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: And I've always felt something a little spooky or unsettling about these strange stores. Chris: How are they so, like, brigadoon? How do they. Kayla: I literally, in my script, I said, these are Halloween brigadoons. Chris: Yeah. How do they do that? Kayla: It seems really weird to me, and maybe there's something more to it, so let's dive in and figure it out. Chris: Oh, do our. Maybe some of our listeners don't know what brigadoon is, so brigadoon is just, like, a legendary city that, like, appears sometimes and then vanishes. And it's. I think it's like Shangri la, too. Doesn't Shangri la do that?

7:35 Kayla: Okay. Chris: What? Kayla: This is how I know I did not marry a theater kid. Brigadoon. Chris: Oh, my God. Kayla: Is a musical. Chris: Oh. Kayla: And the premise of the musical. Chris: Are you gonna cut this part where I sound dumb? Kayla: No, this is my deep cut theater kid knowledge. It's not necessarily everyone's knowledge. I also saw Brigadoon the musical once. It was. Honestly, that's when I kind of started figuring out that I needed to wear glasses because my family was talking about how great the acting was, and I was like, how can you tell? You can't see their faces. Chris: Oh, my God. Kayla: Brigadoon is a musical. It's about two tourists that are touristing around Scotland, and they stumble upon the legendary town of Brigadoon, which only appears once every hundred years. And one of the tourists falls in love with a girl, Fiona, who lives in brigadoon. And that's what the show's about.

8:25 Chris: That's a mistake. Kayla: Yeah. So spear Halloween stores are like that. They show up, and then they're gone. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Vanish out of thin air, and then they're gone. Chris: Sorry, one more aside. You've been referencing Brigadoon to me since basically we got together, which was, like, ten years ago. Kayla: Yeah. Wait, I have. Chris: Yeah. Oh, all the time. Kayla: Really? Chris: Yeah, like, every week. Kayla: Oh, okay. Chris: It feels. I mean, that's an exaggeration, but a lot. And this is like, I literally, until just now, I never knew that it was a play. I just was like, oh, okay. It sounds like. It's just, like, you know, I literally. Kayla: I googled Brigadoon because I wanted to see if the play was, like, based on anything. And it doesn't look like it. It looks like the concept of Brigadoon is specific to the play. It was. It was adapted into a film. But if any of our listeners know if Brigadoon the play slash film, was based on some sort of, like, scottish legend, please let us know, because I would really like to know that.

9:17 Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Why are you googling Shangri la? Chris: Because I want to make sure. I don't know if I'm doing the. Kayla: No, Shangri La is like a utopia, right? Chris: It's okay, but I don't know if it's, like, comes in and out of existence. Kayla: Oh. I don't know if Brigadoon's a utopia. I think just a regular town. I mean, are you gonna use this for the podcast? Cause we're, like, literally almost done. Chris: Yeah, well, I just don't wanna say something wrong, is the thing. Kayla: It's okay to say something wrong. Chris: Okay. So I'm just gonna correct it real quick. Okay. So actually, sorry, just as were talking, I just looked up Shangri La, and it's like a legendary utopia, sort of, you know, valley city place. But I don't think it has the whole, like, it comes into existence and then vanishes and then. I don't think so. Kayla: For ten years, you've been wrong about both brigades and Shangri la. Chris: Yeah, but I know that there's other examples of that. I just can't think of them. So I'm gonna come back later, maybe next episode with a list of examples. I know there's a magic card, speaking of magic. That references shit like that, but nobody will know what it is, so I'm gonna try to get some real ones.

10:13 Kayla: I'm really glad that after ten years of our relationship, eleven, technically, that I finally was able to explain Brigadoon to you. Chris: Yeah, well, I mean, I got it from context, but anyway, well, since the. Kayla: Halloween brigadoons only show up for a small portion of the year and then disappear, I figure before we get into the meat of the episode and really peel back the layers, you and I should probably go visit r1 quick. Ooh, yeah. Chris: Oh, can we use our new microphones? Or, like, our portable travel shaver microphones? Kayla: Yes. Chris: Sweet. Kayla: Let's do it. Chris: All right. Go. Kayla: Spirit. Spirit Halloween.

10:59 Chris: Live from not New York. I just locked my phone and it's still recording. Kayla: Yeah, mine is. So we are on our way to the spirit Halloween store. We're going to figure out if it's a cult or if it's just weird. Chris: Are we going to figure out at the store? Kayla: We're trying out our new lav mics. We probably won't figure it out at the store, but we will figure it out at some point. So we are currently in a fairly large shopping center with Best Buy and O'Reilly auto parts and a bunch of food things and nail salons. And there's an empty retail spot, somewhat large location, that has clearly been taken over by the spirit Halloween store just for the few months that it is in session open.

11:55 Chris: I don't know. So, wait, so after Halloween, can we come back here and check to ensure that it is indeed an empty spot? Kayla: Yes. Chris: Okay. Kayla: But it is indeed an empty spot. Chris: It's not empty now. Kayla: It will be empty once they are gone. They will get in. We'll get more into it once we're recording the actual episode in studio. But they. They're kind of like hermit crabs, wherein they find a location that has been vacated by a previous owner and they make it their new home for a short time. They usually close. They all usually close about three days to a week after Halloween ends.

12:40 Chris: Oh, I'm going the wrong way in a one way. Kayla: Oh, you really fucked this up. Oh, geez, we might die, listeners. Hold on, I need to do something with my wire. Okay, okay, well, they're hiring. Best place to work. Do you see? Chris: That's some real job security. Kayla: Do you see this number right here? Please, please say how many stores there are nationwide? Chris: Over 1360 stores nationwide.

13:20 Kayla: That's impressive. Chris: Yeah, especially for stores that just have to pop right up, right? Kayla: I am highly impressed. Chris: Okay, so it says best place to work, and then it says top 15 employer for work life balance, which I totally buy because I think that means from. Indeed, you only have to work there for a couple weeks and then you get the whole rest of the year off. Kayla: Right. Forbes says it's the best list of best employers for diversity. Good soundtrack. Okay, the thing that I want to know, so many Halloween stores, when they sell costumes that are like, based on ip, they have to be like arabian princess.

14:07 Chris: These are real. Kayla: Yeah, I know, that's what I'm saying. How do they, like, we're looking literally at Aladdin, at Toy Story, Ghostbusters, at Mario, at how to bring your dragon. Like, we must license specific ips. Like, that's expensive. Chris: I don't know how. Kayla: But then, of course, they've got just regular, like, witch, monster, dinosaur. Oh, is the buzz Lightyear drags borderlands? Yes, Fortnite. I was reading an article about how, like, parents are very confused about the Fortnite Halloween costumes because they just have no idea what this is. Oh, I should be taking pictures of this.

14:53 Chris: Don't worry. Kayla: This, I want this one. It makes you look a stick figure in the dark. Chris: That's pretty cool. Yeah, it's Minecraft, so he can be like his TikTok kids. Kayla: Oh, we should get this for real life. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: I need a Zelda shield and a master sword. Chris: Since 2007, Spirit Halloween has raised donations for our spirit and children program on behalf of local hospitals. 100% of every dollar collected goes directly. Kayla: To the child life department in the local hospital. It's terrifying.

15:36 Chris: Donate to spirit of children today to help change a child's life. All right. Kayla: Oh, my God. That's terrifying. Oh, that was really scary. Oh, my God. They've got Riverdale. Chris: Why is costume cat in the hat and the adult section? Kayla: This is for an adulthood to wear.

16:17 Chris: Oh, I thought it meant, like, adults. Kayla: No, like four adults to wear. Oh, God. Handmaid's tail. Chris: Yeah. Not great. Not great. Kayla: Daddy shark. Chris: Baby shark. Kayla: But it's Daddy shark. Oh, my God. They've got hot Jared from labyrinth. Chris: Wow. Kayla: It's, like, literally everything you'd ever want. Yeah. Bomb burgers. It's pretty good. There's pretty good stuff here.

17:18 Chris: I'll take a photo of this stuff. Kayla: These do. Ooh, I want these finger rings. It's not really adult stuff. It's just. It's just stockings. Chris: Bunch of sexy legs. Kayla: It's just stockings. But it's just stockings. It's not, like, sex stuff. It's just for sexy costumes. There's also. It's right next to nunchucks and angel wings. Where are there whips?

17:59 Chris: There's a whip right there. Kayla: Well, that's not like a whip. That's like a Jones whip. Chris: Whip. Kayla: You ready? Yeah. We're going to see it. Let's do this. Some of these animatronic things they have are, like, really scary.

18:48 Chris: All right, here's our cardinal, so, I don't know, Halloween store. Nothing crazy out of the ordinary, other than the fact that they had all those licensed products was pretty surprising. Kayla: Right. Chris: It's, like, pretty high quality stuff, more or less. Kayla: Right, right. Chris: Animatronics, like, for the fact that they're only here a few weeks, it's pretty crazy. They're able to put up animatronics that, like, react to your presence and all that production y value stuff. Kayla: I just like how it was very interesting how there's, like, kind of statistics everywhere. Like the fact that you walk in and it's like, we have this many stores, and our employees are treated this well, and then this is how much money we've donated to our organization, which is an incredible organization, Spirit of children. We'll talk about it more when we get back in studio. But I. It's basically a charity where the spirit. The. What is it? Spirit Halloween stores, go to hospitals where children with illnesses live, decorate the hospitals, make them all Halloweeny, and then they can, like, show off their costumes, do trick or treating while still living.

20:02 Chris: It's like they can experience Halloween even if they're not able to leave the hospital. Kayla: And they, you know, they show how much money that's been donated. And it was just interesting to me how, like, how many statistics there were around. Chris: Yeah, yeah. It was very stat heavy, which, you know, again, appeals to me as a stats guy. Kayla: True. Chris: It's like when you did the census for the tulpas. Kayla: Right, right. You did enjoy that. So, yeah, it's a store. It's weird to know that it was only. He's only been here for, like, a month, and it'll be gone. Chris: Oh, yeah. When do they. Is it, like, the beginning of September? Kayla: Middle of August. Chris: Middle of August. Kayla: Middle of August. Middle of August is when they start Halloween early. Chris: Well, geez.

20:43 Kayla: We'll talk. We'll talk more about how their business flow works when we get back in studio. So, business flow, you're ready? If you're ready to go, let's do it. Chris: Last time, we talked about life insurance. This time we're talking about business flow. You know, maybe we'll do another MLM episode with another economics lesson. Kayla: I'm telling you, the moral of this podcast is that capitalism is a cult. Chris: Kind of. Yeah. All right, back to the studio. Let's do it. Kayla: Okay, so we're back. Chris: Yeah, we are. Kayla: From our venture out into the world. Hello, out into the spirit Halloween store.

21:25 Chris: It's good to be back. Kayla: So it was an enjoyable experience. It's a very fun store. They have, you know, fun interactive displays, I guess you'd call them, with, like, their big animatronics. Yeah, it's fun to look at all the costumes. There's kids running around. But knowing that it's, like, in an old, abandoned retail space, knowing that it's only there for three months out of the year, like, it's not a typical retail experience. Chris: No, I'll say. So the things that stuck out to me were, one, all the license material that was, like, crazy how much license material they had, right? Kayla: Especially with hardcore stuff. So many other Halloween stores. Like, if you want to buy a Mario costume, it's called, like, italian mushroom man. Or, like, you want to be a fortnight character. It's like dancing video game guy.

22:09 Chris: Right? Or if it's Aladdin, it's like arabian princess, but everything there was, like. And all of those things, too. Like, not just Disney, but also Nintendo, also Fortnite. Kayla: That's a lot of licensers, Borderlands, bunch of other shit tv shows. Like, there was the office stuff. There was Bob's burgers. Chris: Yeah, it was crazy. It was all over the place. It was amazing. Stranger things. Yeah, stranger things. Anyway, that's number one. Number two to me was. Yeah. Was those interactive thingies that they had set up, like all the, you know, walk in front of this skeleton and its eyes glow red and it screams at you. Kayla: Right. Chris: Or the crazy cujo dog that jumped out of the thing. So those are the things that stood out to me. Kayla: And that was actually kind of like, we'll get into it more later, but the store that went to was actually kind of low key in terms of their, like, interactivity and animatronics. Really a lot of spirit. Halloween stores will actually set up, like, almost like haunted houses to walk, to, like, demonstrate and showcase their products. Like, and some of them will have as many as, like four or five. Like, in one store.

23:11 Chris: That's crazy because you would expect with something that's only there, you know, two months or three months or whatever out of the year, you'd expect it to be just kind of like, hey, here's some hats, right? Here's a hat and some candy. Bye. Kayla: Part of their business model is, like, making the shopping experience actually an experience. And not just like, I'm going into the store and just grabbing something that's definitely supposed to go in and have fun. Chris: That's definitely what it felt like. Kayla: I even read like one. And again, we'll get into it more later. But I even read, like, one blog post of somebody who likes spirit Halloween stories. Basically saying, like, I actually think that they could charge, like, a small entrance fee into some of these. Chris: No shit. Kayla: Yeah, because they get so interactive. Chris: Wow.

23:51 Kayla: Not this one. This one was great. But it wasn't like haunted house. Chris: Yeah. You know what I was thinking, too, because we're saying, like, oh, it's weird that it's only there for a few months. Kayla: Right? Chris: Is that weirder? Or would it be weirder to have a Halloween store that was selling items in February? Kayla: I think that would also be weird. I think the least weird situation would be, like, going to target and they have Halloween stuff out during Halloween time rather than, like, pop up stores. Chris: Or maybe it's just like holiday store and they rotate their offerings. Kayla: That would be pretty cool. I don't know why that isn't a thing. Chris: I don't know. Let's start it. Kayla: They also, you can stop recording right now to start. Chris: All right, bye, everyone. Kayla: You can buy spirit Halloween products year round. They have. They have a year round presence online.

24:37 Chris: Oh, right, the Internet's. Yeah, right. Kayla: So are you ready to dive in? Chris: Oh, I'm diving. Kayla: I think that it's actually really important that went and visited a spirit Halloween location because the locations themselves are the crux of the business and are basically going to be the crux of this podcast. So let me explain by going way back to the beginning. My research comes from a number of thorough articles from Forbes, Vox, mental Floss, Bloomberg, Atlas, Obscura, medium, Spirit Halloween's own website, and various forums across the Internet providing anecdotal experiences from people who enjoy spirit Halloween or who have worked at Spirit Halloween. So it's probably important, you know, for our international listeners who may not know what the hell we're talking about. Let's define our terms. Spirit Halloween is a pop up retail store that operates across the US and Canada for three months out of the year, selling inventory focused on the holiday of Halloween.

25:34 Kayla: They generally open up, like we mentioned, in the middle of August, and they close often. November 1. Halloween is October 31. So Spirit Halloween didn't actually start as a Halloween store. Chris: What? Kayla: No. Chris: Then why do they call it Spirit Halloween? Kayla: We'll get to it. It actually started out in the early eighties as Spirit women's discount apparel, a low cost women's clothing store operating in Castro Valley, California. And that's kind of up near San Francisco. Chris: Okay, so that's so funny, because I assumed that Spirit Halloween was either like, you know, spirits like ghosts, right? Or it was just like the spirit of the holiday, right? Kayla: Nope, it was just a. It's a. What is it? Not of the cap to the original name of the store. So spirit women's discount apparel was the first entrepreneurial endeavor from Jo Marver, a businessman who has since moved on to other projects. In 1982, Joe became frustrated over his lack of business at his store, especially in comparison to the sales the costume shop next to his experienced during the Halloween season. Marver's quoted as saying, quote, I used to drool at the business he'd do at Halloween. Joe Marver is very much, he loves being a businessman, and he loves entrepreneurial stuff, and he loves. Not necessarily. He's not necessarily a huge Halloween fan. He's a huge, like, making money, doing a good business fan.

26:59 Chris: Right. But if he's going to drool, whereas a normal person might just get a napkin, right, he is going to start a business or change a business model. Kayla: Collect that drool and turn it into something. Chris: That's right. That's the american dream. Kayla: Well, he, I mean, he truly is the american dream. He took instead of like, you know, being, just being frustrated, he decided to take inspiration from his competitor. And in October 1983, he put his dresses in regular inventory back into storage and instead stocked his store with costumes and superhero masks. Chris: Awesome. He plus onedit. That's what we'd say in 2019. Kayla: He plus won it. What does that mean? Chris: That means you copy somebody else but you do it like a little bit better. Kayla: Oh, gotcha. Chris: Okay. Kayla: It's like Blizzard's entire business. Yeah, sorry, we won't put that in.

27:41 Chris: No, we can. I mean, that a, that is their business model. B, it's like something that games do a lot. They also call, they also refer to things like, called, like fast follow. So like find something that's, you know, something that got super successful and then like try to follow it up quickly with, you know, something slightly better. It's also a marketing term you see here thrown around by marketing guys a lot. Like, ooh, I like that idea that you really plus one. That Bob plus. Kayla: Is it plus one or plus one? Plus one? Well, it's like, is it passersby or is it passerby? It's passersby. Chris: So it's pluses. Kayla: I hate how that sounds. Either way, Joe Marver plus one to his competitor. And it worked. Like this shift in his business practices made a ton of money in that short time and so he decided to double down. The following year, he grabbed some retail space that was available at a local mall and opened the first official spirit Halloween pop up shop.

28:34 Chris: So he plus one, then he doubled. Okay, so that's plus times two. Kayla: So he threed it. Chris: Trying to. Okay, yeah, he's trying to keep track of the math. Kayla: He did three. Okay, speaking of math, do you want to guess how much money the shop made that first month? Chris: The first month? Kayla: Yep. Not that. Not in 1982. In 1983 with the pop up shop. The like first. Chris: The first month. The first time, yeah. In a month. I don't know. 100 grand? Kayla: A hundred thousand dollars. Chris: Wow. Kayla: 100 grand. Chris: Good for him. Kayla: That to me sounds like insane. Chris: Well, I mean, yeah, for a single store, that is insane. Kayla: I just can't even imagine how that must have felt. Yeah, like, oh, that must have felt so good. Anyway, Marvor realized he had a good thing going here and decided to then focus on these seasonal pop up shops over the next 50. So spirit women's discount apparel went away and just became spirit Halloween over the next 15 years, Marvor grew his business to 63 pop up stores across the country, and larger companies began to take notice. He began receiving acquisition offers left and right, many of them below what he believed the company was worth.

29:48 Chris: Well, you know, you gotta start low for the acquisitions. Kayla: Yeah, but Marvor knows his value. Chris: Well, that's. Yeah. Good for him. Kayla: In 1998, for example, Spencer gifts made an offer Marvor felt he had no choice but to turn down. They didn't want to come up with what I was asking. Chris: Do we have a figure? Kayla: We don't. Oh, yeah, I know. I looked. Chris: That's a shame. I was hoping it'd be like. It was like $15. Kayla: It was $15. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Glad he turned it down. Because just a year later, Marvor ran into an exec from Spencer Gifs at a party supply trade show in New York, and the two got to talking. Eventually, Marvor accepted a limousine ride from him to Spencer's headquarters in the greatest city in the world.

30:33 Chris: Reno. Kayla: Egg harbor township, New Jersey. Chris: Wait, what? Kayla: Egg harbor township, New Jersey. Chris: Egg harbor township. Kayla: Egg, e g. Egg harbor. Chris: Is the harbor shaped like an egg or does it contain eggs? Kayla: God only knows. Chris: Probably has fish eggs. Kayla: Potentially, yeah. So Joe Marver went with this exec to the headquarters to hear a new pitch from the retail giant. Chris: That is. You know, I've been in Spencer gifts, and when it makes sense that they're headquartered in a place called Egg harbor. Egg harbor township. Kayla: When did you go to Spencer gifts? Chris: I don't know. Kayla: As a teenager? Chris: Yeah, like when I was in the mall as a teenager. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Or when I was, like, shopping for you for Christmas last year.

31:15 Kayla: Ew. That's not going in. Chris: So wait, no, Spencer isn't always, like, lingerie. It's not like sexy stuff. Kayla: Spencer is novelty gifts and sex toys. We'll talk more about it later. Chris: Mostly like novelty stuff. Kayla: We'll talk more about it later. Don't get ahead of me. Chris: All right, fine. Cut that out then. Kayla: Okay, so he went there, heard this new pitch, and this time, Spencer Gifs was willing to play ball. Quote, now they said, fine, we'll do it your way. Then they gave me a very nice check. I tried to find, God damn it. The number I could not. Listeners, if anyone out there has better sleuthing skills than me, we would love to know how much Spencer gifs paid Joe Marver to acquire spirit Halloween.

31:58 Chris: Please tell us they couldn't find it. Kayla: But even if we never find out, it's safe to say that spirit Halloween has paid for itself many times over. Because spirit Halloween stores are currently responsible for nearly half of Spencer Gift's $250 million annual revenue. Chris: Wait, half of their yearly revenue. And they're only around a few months. Kayla: Half. And they're only around for three months. Half. Chris: Okay, somebody really has to do this seasonal thing then, right? Kayla: What do you mean? Chris: Like they just rotate the seasons? Kayla: Oh, yeah, that would be pretty smart. Chris: Cause like, if they're making that much money out of three, you know what I mean? Like they're making half. Damn.

32:41 Kayla: So that was in 1999 and Spirit Halloween had 63 stores. Do you remember the stat we read when we visited our location? Chris: 1350 stores. Kayla: They currently operate 1360 stores across the US and Canada. I think that is referred to, I believe, as a metric shit ton. I think. Chris: Yeah, that's what that. Yeah. Kayla: For like comparison. Walmart, big ass Walmart, has. Chris: Yeah, Walmart. Like owns Walmart. Right? Kayla: They have like 5000 stores. So. Chris: So it's a fourth of Walmart. Kayla: Lil old Spirit Halloween is a. Is a quarter of Walmart. Chris: Holy shit. Kayla: Yeah. So good to know. The more you know, the more you know. I just want to tie up Joe Marvor right now. Put a little bow on it. He's sold his business. He's sitting pretty. He is. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that he's probably set for life at this point.

33:36 Chris: Is he our charismatic leader? Kayla: We can decide that at the end. Chris: Oh, oh, there's competition. Kayla: So Joe Marver moved on from spirit Halloween when Spencer's acquired it. And in his travels, he discovered called Twisp Washington. Chris: What? Why are there no twisp? Please. Why are there such weird town names? Kayla: Well, he fell in love with Twisp Washington and. Chris: Are you sure it's not like it's something else and somebody just had a lisp and they're like, twisp Washington. Kayla: No, he's got. It's twisp. Chris: Okay. Kayla: He now currently operates a custom boutique 16 room hotel called Twisp River Suites. And he's also tangentially embroiled in an arson case in Twispental. In 2016, the Twisp river pub was intentionally burned down in an act of arson that, according to my research, still remains unsolved. Marver purchased the damaged building intending to restore and reopen it as a new annex to his hotel. But for kind of unknown reasons, he eventually decided against it and suddenly put the building up for sale.

34:43 Chris: So he's just involved like in a real estate man or whatever? In a real estate man, not like he's. Kayla: He didn't do it. Chris: Okay. Kayla: But he's just. When I googled Joe Marvor, I got a number of, like, these arson case articles back. Chris: What? Kayla: So, okay. Joe Marver is now out of the picture when it comes to spirit Halloween. Chris: So he just. He took his money and now he's. Kayla: Like, now he's running this cool ass hotel. He's like, I traveled so much working for spirit Halloween, I stayed in all these shit ass hotels. I want to make a nice hotel where you feel like you're at home. It's cozy. Chris: Is it haunted? Kayla: I hope so. It's in twist. Twist definitely has ghosts. Let's now talk for a minute about the current owner, Spencer gifts. Spencer Gifts LLC, which does business now as Spencer's is a mall specific retail store with over 600 locations in the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico.

35:36 Chris: Do they have a location in twist? And if they did, would it be Spencer's? Spencer twist gifts? Kayla: We really shouldn't make fun of people with lisps on our show. It's mean. Chris: It's just hard to say. Kayla: It is hard to say. Spencer's twists. Chris: Sorry. If you have a lisp. I'm not making fun of you. Kayla: Oh, you think you have a lisp? Which I don't understand. Chris: I have a little bit of a lisp. Kayla: So when I say mall specific, it means that Spencer's only operates inside of malls. Like, they don't really. As far as I know, they don't have any, like, standalone locations. Like, you're not going to drive to a shopping center and just find like a standalone Spencer. Chris: So in 2019, that sounds like that they don't have any locations then, because malls all dying. Kayla: They current. We'll talk about that. They currently have 600 locations.

36:20 Chris: Okay. Kayla: They're still pretty big in the mall sector. Chris: Okay. So being that there's like two malls left, that's about 300 spencers per mall. Kayla: Per mall. Chris: Okay. Okay. Kayla: So like you mentioned, they are known for cheap or silly sex toys, novelty gifts, gag gifts, and pop culture paraphernalia. Chris: Yeah, I thought they were known for just like, whoopee cushions and other things that make it sound like you're farting. Kayla: They're also well known for those adorable little funko bobbleheads. Chris: Wait, they own funk? Kayla: No, but they just, like. They are a, like, large seller. Chris: They're distributor of Funko. Kayla: Oh, they sell a lot of funkos. Chris: Okay, but funkos, like, everybody sells funkos. We sell funkos. Kayla: We don't sell funkos practically. We should make funkos.

37:02 Chris: We should make fun. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. Everybody sells funkos. Kayla: Some other specific items that they're known for, like you mentioned, are fart sound machines, candles that look like boobs, and anything you can imagine but just shaped like a. Anything you can imagine but just shaped like a dick. Chris: Mm. Kayla: That's basically what they sell, right? Chris: That's how I remember them. Kayla: Spencer gifts was founded in 1947. Chris: What? Kayla: Yep. That is. Chris: Wow. Kayla: Not what I would have guessed. Chris: They're old timey. Kayla: That is, I would have guessed, like, 1979 at the earliest, you know? Chris: Holy moly. Kayla: Nope. Spencer Gifts was founded in 1947, originally as a mail order catalog for novelty items. Okay, what is a 1947 novelty item?

37:42 Chris: Like? Kayla: Is it those hand buzzers? Is it whoopee cushions? Chris: Like, I don't know. Kayla: I would love to get my hands on, like, an original Spencer's oh, my God catalog. It was a successful endeavor, obviously, and the first brick and mortar Spencers was opened in 1963 in the Cherry Hill mall in New Jersey. And in fact, that must have been. Chris: Like, one of the first malls. Kayla: I mean, malls were, like, starting to come up in the sixties, right? It was like post World War two, right? Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Well, either way, that location is still in operation. You can go visit the first spencers. The business continued to grow and was eventually acquired by Universal Studios. Chris: Spencer's. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Why? Kayla: I don't know. It was like they had, like, this. They had, like, a retail entertainment branch for a while, man.

38:27 Chris: Wait, when was this? Kayla: Like, in the late nineties. Chris: Okay. Because, like, late night. I feel like late nineties, early two thousands. Kayla: Like, just everything was. Chris: Everything was just buying everything. Like, that's. I think that was around. I want to say the, like, the early two thousands was around when, like, the Vivendi. The Vivendi blizzard thing went through. Kayla: Hold that thought. Chris: Okay? Kayla: Because Universal Studios is only one of its owners, because eventually it was acquired by Vivendi, I think. Chris: Fucking Vivendi. Kayla: In, like, the late nineties. Early two thousands. Chris: Yeah. Vivendi was buying everything. Kayla: So they were owned by Vivendi for a short while. Chris: You know Vivendi's core businesses, right? Kayla: No water. What? Chris: Yes.

39:08 Kayla: I thought it was video games. Chris: No, water. Water. Kayla: What? Water? Chris: Please. Look this up to make sure that I'm not lying, but I'm pretty sure they're. I'm pretty sure their core business is just, like, selling, like, water bottles or something. Kayla: Like what? Chris: Like Vivendi water bottles or Vivendi, like, you know, like. Like Zephyr Hills or Arrowhead or. Kayla: I think you might be completely wrong. Chris: I don't know. Check it out. But I think. I don't know if it's. Maybe that's not their core business, but that's, like, what they started as. Kayla: They started as a water company. Chris: Yeah, yeah. Kayla: But now they're considered, like, utilities, or, like, now they're considered a french mass media conglomerate with activities in music, television, film, video games, book publishing, telecommunications tickets, and video hosting services. Yeah, they started, but originally they started as water. Wait, let me read you this sentence from Wikipedia. On December 14, 1853, a water company named something in French. Compagnie general des. O, which I think O is water.

40:01 Chris: O is water. Yeah. Kayla: Was created by an imperial decree of Napoleon III. Chris: Wait, so I can trace a direct line from a company that I worked for to Napoleon III? That's very strange. Kayla: For more than a century, this company remained largely focused on the water sector. And then eventually they bought Blizzard. Chris: Fucking Vivendi, man. Oh, yeah, they're just. They're just like one of those. I don't know, I just think of them as one of those, like, you know, when you think of Uberegh globalized conglomerate, like, you know, like globocorp type, that's. I think of that. Kayla: Oh, you mean like GB Paladin or Akon investments? What? Those are other, like, owners of Spencer's. It went from.

40:48 Chris: What the hell? Kayla: From Spencer's to universal studios to Vivendi to GB Paladin, and now it's currently owned by Acon Investments. Acon. All capitalized. Chris: I would not name my investment company con. That's not what I want. Kayla: Investments. Chris: Yeah, that is definitely. I'm not sure why they did that. Maybe it's just kind of like a. Fuck you. What are you gonna do? Easter egg, you know, I don't know. Kayla: But in 2003, the store was entirely rebranded and began to operate at stores under the new name of Spencer's. So originally it was Spencer gifts, and now it's just Spencer's. Chris: Okay, but this is Spencer's. Not. Not Halloween spirit Halloween, no, but Spencer's own spiritual. Right. Right.

41:29 Kayla: So Spencer gifts, now Spencer's. It hasn't been all sunshine and roses for Spencer's. However, the company has been in trouble multiple times with the FTC, the general public, the American Arab Anti discrimination committee, and the ancient order of Hibernians. What the fuck? The ancient order of Hibernians is like. I think it's like the largest, like, irish heritage group in the United States. Chris: Okay, okay, so slightly more normal. Kayla: Let's talk about some of these troubles just because I thought they were interesting. During the 1960s and seventies, the FTC investigated spencers at least three times and found it guilty of making misleading statements in advertising ranging from claiming unverified results from diet products selling junk jewelry they claimed contained gold and precious stones and misleading customers by selling, quote, non prescription magnifying spectacles that didn't actually aid in vision correction. So they're like, here, try these glasses. You'll be able to see.

42:26 Chris: Oh, my God. So they were just like, yeah, we're. We can do prescriptions now. Yeah, that's cool. Kayla: Well, they were non prescription. Chris: Right. Well, that reminds me of, like, when went to voodoo donuts and they had the donut that, like, had all, like, the crushed up aspirin on the top, and they were just like, yeah, we can sell that. And then, like, the government was like. Kayla: No, I think that this is maybe more similar to, like, when you go to the dollar store and you can buy, like, reading glasses, right? Like, they're non prescription. You're just like, oh, I need this, whatever. But they were saying, like, the shit that they were selling didn't actually do what they were claiming, so they got in trouble. Chris: Yeah, that's. Yeah. Kayla: Similarly, over the years, Spencer's has come under fire for selling products various groups have deemed racist or too sexually explicit.

43:08 Chris: Well, they do have, like, a sort of, like, raunchy hue sort of thing going. Kayla: Sometimes they cross the line. Like, for example, in 1989, the American Arab Anti Discrimination committee, also called the ADC, called for a nationwide boycott of Spencer's when it began selling chic and Arafat masks in the same collection as their monster masks. Chris: Ooh, wait. Arafat, like Yaser? Kayla: Yeah, but it was just, like, called, this is an Arafat mask. And it's worth noting that these two masks were the only masks included this collection that featured, like, any sort of, like, real life ethnicity or group of people. So it doesn't really take a genius to recognize that selling masks of a group of people alongside masks of scary monsters, like vampires, werewolves, like, it's hella racist. You're saying that. Oh, yeah, these are all monsters, including arab people, right? Just don't do that.

44:04 Chris: And did they stop? Kayla: They stopped for, like, three days, and then they sold. And they're like, then they literally stopped for a short amount of time. And then they were like, well, we got to get rid of it. And so they put them back on sale, but they didn't order the masks again. Chris: Why not just. Why not just sell them in, like, a different. Not in the monster mask section. Kayla: I don't know. It wasn't that they were selling it in a section. It was like, this was a collection of products. Like, it was under a specific line. I think it's called the fright night line or something. So selling them, regardless of where you place it in the store, it's part of a collection of masks that are, like, the monster masks. Chris: Okay. Kayla: And the guy who was, like, the CEO of Spencer at the time was like, we're gonna sell them anyway. But then they didn't gotta move that inventory. They didn't order them again the following year. They were just like, we'll do it this year.

44:51 Chris: Look, Kayla, they don't want to have a bunch of Yasser Arafat masks just sitting in boxes in their garage that their downline can't move for them. Kayla: Like, maybe they should just throw them in the trash. Cause it feels extremely immoral and wrong and hurtful and disgusting to sell masks of real, live people and call them monster masks. Like, that's racism. Chris: I don't have a funny thing to say in response to that. Kayla: That's fine. A similar controversy happened in 2014 when they began selling a shirt that said, fuck me, I'm irish, and a hat that said, irish girl wasted the ancient order of Hibernia. Chris: Oh, I shouldn't laugh. That's. That's. I guess, well, I'm half irish, so I can laugh at that, right?

45:34 Kayla: Every time you tell me that you're irish, I'm shocked. Chris: It's because I, like, none of the genes express themselves. No, it's just, like, my heritage. And all of the genes are like, nah, we're gonna let the other genes do the work. Kayla: Like, you're not irish. Chris: Yeah, all of my italian jeans are expressing themselves in, like, a little bit of my swedish jeans. And all of my irish jeans are. Kayla: Just like, wait, where are the swedish jeans? Chris: We're gonna chill. My last name is Carlson. Kayla: Oh, yeah, that's genetic. That's not genetic. Chris: Yeah. No, that's a genius. Kayla: I think it's the fact that you're impervious to cold. It's that. Chris: That's that. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Yeah. I do enjoy cold. Kayla: You do? But I'm also scandinavian, and I hate the cold. I mean, I prefer the cold to the hot, but I'm. I always have a blankie on your.

46:15 Chris: Your nordic genes express themselves in other ways. Kayla: Like, well, I'm blonde. You're not the end. Chris: Right? Kayla: So anyway, with all this irish gear that they were selling for St. Patty's Day, the ancient order of Hibernians took offense and actually called on Spencers to stop selling the derogatory merch. Chris: I guess that's fair. Kayla: Yeah, from. So here's a quote from Wikipedia. Ancient order of Hibernians. National anti defamation chairman Neal Cosgrove protested, quote, we note that Spencer's gifts is a. Is a recidivist when it comes to denigrating the heritage and culture of Irish Americans. Spencer's, St. Pat's merchandise seems to plumb new lows with each year. Chris: Right, so what he's saying. So recidivism means that they just keep doing it and doing it. Yeah.

46:57 Kayla: Like, if they're selling extremely racist masks in 1989, it sucks that they're, like, potentially doing more racial racist prejudice stuff in 2014. Chris: Yeah, but I think what he's saying is they do it every year on St. Patty's Day. Kayla: Oh, yeah, every year they sell, like, shitty, according to the ancient North Hibernians, shitty, offensive irish stereotype stuff, which I don't know much about that, but if the ancient order. If, like, the irish heritage group is saying, like, fuck you don't do this, I'm inclined to be like, yeah, maybe listen to them. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of funny, but. Kayla: Yeah, well, I think that maybe something like irish girl wasted isn't funny if we're talking about a girl.

47:39 Chris: I guess it's also pretty lazy. Kayla: Potentially has, like, alcoholism problems. Or, like, there's definitely that stereotype that. I don't know if it's true or not, but there's definitely that stereotype that's a. Maybe been harmful to that group of people. Chris: And it's also, like, the laziest joke in the world. Like, yeah. Oh, irish people. You know what? It's true about irish people. Kayla: Yeah. So don't be lazy. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: If it's lazy, it's bad. Spencer's, like we said, also sells a lot of sex toys and sexually explicit products. And while they try to prevent children from accessing their adults only areas, that doesn't always work out. So Spencer's has come under fire a number of times for its sexual products being available in store rather than, like, just online or behind a padlock. I don't know. Okay, so that's Spencer's.

48:25 Chris: Okay. Kayla: Now back to its second biggest cash cow, spirit Halloween. Yeah, let's talk about exactly how the business model works, because herein lies the cult enos, or just weirdness. Okay, so spirit Halloween is able to operate as the largest Halloween specialty store in the United States, largely due to something called the retail apocalypse. Chris: The retail apocalypse. Kayla: I was gonna say. Have you heard this phrase before? Chris: Well, you can tell by the way I said those words. Kayla: I love this phrase. It's very evocative. I don't remember hearing this phrase until researching this topic. Chris: Is this something that already happened? Kayla: Yeah. Well, it's happening.

49:06 Chris: Oh, it's happening right now. Yeah. Okay. Kayla: Nearly every article I read about spirit Halloween mentions it at least once, because the retail apocalypse is absolutely vital to the growth of these specialty pop up stores. Chris: No shit. Kayla: The term retail apocalypse, or retail pocalypse, refers to the mass closure of many american retail stores, like brick and mortar physical locations. The phrase was coined. Yeah, you know what it is, right? The phrase was coined in 2017, but the phenomenon began in 2010, a couple years after, like, the great Recession. Chris: Right. Kayla: And it has been unfolding ever since. More than 12,000 stores have shuttered during those years, including department stores and massive retailers like Sears, JCPenney, Bloomingdale's, Macy's, Borders, books, Toys R Us, Payless, and.

49:54 Chris: Yeah, Toys R us. We see where went to the toys r us, like, when it was doing its shutdown. Oh, God, that was sad. Kayla: I know. And the interesting. The interesting. One of the interesting things about this retail apocalypse is that it has, like, domino effects situation. So, like, Hasbro actually ended up doing a lot of layoffs in 2018 because of the loss of revenue from their Toys r us. Like, oh, man, revenue. So. Chris: And they own magic. So that ties it in. Back to something we talked about a little bit earlier. Kayla: For some of these retailers, the entire businesses, like, went out of business. A lot of them, like, declared bankruptcy or shut down. Like, borders doesn't exist anymore. Chris: Right. Kayla: Payless is gone. Like, Sears has declared bankruptcy. And these are just some examples. Like, the retail apocalypse has reached far and wide, and it's also responsible, like you mentioned, for the mass closure of malls.

50:42 Chris: Yeah, malls are just. Kayla: They're just going. Yeah. All across the country, malls are just going out of business. Like, not just stores. Like, the entire mall is empty. Chris: There's a cool website. We should link the website either on our Twitter or Instagram of all of the abandoned mall. There's, like, just a website that. That just takes place, collects photos of abandoned malls, and it's just, like, haunting. Speaking of Halloween. Kayla: Haunting. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: In 2017, it was estimated that by 2022, which isn't that far away, 25% of remaining american malls would close down. Chris: Wow. Holy shit. Kayla: So part of this is due to shifting consumer habits and preferences, and part of this, Amazon. Yeah. Part of this has to do with the loss of, quote, unquote, anchor stores like Sears, Macy's, and Bloomingdale's, which we talked about being very affected by the retail apocalypse. So fewer people are going to those stores. Those stores declare bankruptcy, start leaving malls. And then because those are, like, the big draw, the malls themselves start to close. Like, once those big stores leave malls, the mall is basically doomed.

51:51 Chris: Right. That makes sense as the anchors. Yeah. Wait, so people don't go to malls to get, like, cell phone cases and those, like, center aisles and, you know, scammed by mlms and stuff? That's not why people go to malls. Kayla: I think people go to malls to specifically practice their, like, escape techniques and, like, practice how to not talk to people. At least that's. I know every time I'm at a mall, I am coming up with every possible way to avoid eye contact with those guys, to look them busy, to, like, would give them a wide berth. Like, I will do anything in my. Chris: Power, flowing my own eyes out, killing myself. Kayla: Well, the problem is that I bought a product from one of those people when I was in high school.

52:34 Chris: What did you buy? Kayla: My friend Annie Chang and I were at the mall, and were going, I think were walking to Olive Garden to meet her boyfriend. Chris: And that's a dangerous. Kayla: One of them stopped us and was like. And we didn't know it was a kiosk guy, but this guy walks up and goes, oh, do you guys have natural nails? And I was like, oh, did he notice my nails? Chris: He was banking on that. Like, that was what? Kayla: Exactly. And he. This guy was a great salesman. Like, he literally was like, okay. And, like, he just started demonstrating this nail product on us. And then we tried to get out of it. Chris: This guy's so nice. Kayla: Well, no, we knew it was sales at that point. He tried to. We tried to, like, get out of it. Like, Annie was like, oh, I really gotta go meet my boyfriend right now. And the guy, I remember the guy's response clear as day. Cause he was hard selling. And we ended up walking away having purchased something. His response to that was like, it was, oh, I always just make my boyfriend buy me stuff. So the way we kind of got out of it was, were like, well. Cause he was trying to sell us this.

53:32 Chris: I thought you said you bought stuff. Kayla: I know. We were trying to get out of it. The way we, like, halfway got out of it was he was trying to sell us these, like, nail file buffer thingies and this, like, hand lotion. I still have the hand lotion? Like, what, so many? Yeah. Chris: Is that not. Kayla: It's definitely not usable, but I have it as a memento of my. Chris: I have never seen 14 year old self. Kayla: 15 year old self. And so were like, well, we'll just buy one of each and then we can share it. So she kept the nail file thing and I kept the lotion. Chris: You showed him. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: You totally bought only a small amount of things. Kayla: I think the lotion was dollar 20. Chris: Oh, my God. Kayla: And it was not good lotion. So, no, I don't think people go to the store, the malls to deal with those folks who are incredible salesmen and women.

54:18 Chris: Guess I'm sad about malls closing. I don't know. Kayla: Well, we'll keep talking about it. Okay, so the retail apocalypse has left behind a massive amount of empty retail space. I mean, I know for me it seems like I'm constantly driving by, like, defunct Kmarts and defunct Toys R us's. Interesting side note, you mentioned Amazon. Let's talk a little bit about you. Chris: I coughed. I coughed. Kayla: You coughed. Amazon. Chris: Oh, really? Kayla: While the retail apocalypse has drastically altered the retail landscape by closing stores, it's also affected the retail landscape by shifting alongside consumer habits. Totally unrelated to our topic, but just interesting to mention, some of the stores unaffected by the retail apocalypse are Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, CV's, Walgreens, Target, Ulta Beauty, fast fashion, or discount stores like H and M. Or Ross dollar stores. And build a bear workshop.

55:13 Chris: Mmm. Naturally. So what do all those have in common? Why are they not affected? Kayla: Let me finish out my sentence and then we can speculate. Many online retailers have also not experienced any sort of decline. Amazon, of course, is still a giant. And. Chris: Yeah, what's the opposite of decline? Meteor rise to the largest company on the planet. Yeah, yeah, that. Kayla: So they're still a giant. And then other online retailers are also experiencing growth. Like Warby Parker, who sells glasses, Casper mattresses and wafer furniture. They've also continued to grow. Chris: Are we about to shill for Casper? Because that's like the podcast. They're into advertising on podcasts. Kayla: I mean, I. We can. Because I know. For me, I was getting terrible sleep every night until we bought our Casper mattress.

56:00 Chris: They're not paying us yet. Kayla: No. Yeah, we should shout out our actual mattress. Shit. What's it called? It's great. I love our mattress. Chris: Titan. Kayla: Titan. Titan mattress. Get it? It's good. Chris: Is it Titan? Kayla: Yes. Chris: Okay. Kayla: I think so. I think that's the Titan mattress. Look it up. They're good for your back. Okay, so, yeah, so, yeah. What do you think are some similar, I don't have, like, answer to this, but, like, what are some similarities, do you think, for these stores that haven't been affected by the retail apocalypse? Chris: It's tough to say. To me, it just feels like it's a situation where all of those stores are places that you want to physically browse the items. Like you want to pick them up and put them down and whatever. Maybe that doesn't apply to big box like Walmart and Target, but I think.

56:41 Kayla: For that it's probably cost, like all of the stores we talked about outside of Home Depot, Walmart, Cheap, Costco, cheap cv's, Walgreens, Target, Ulta, fast fashion dollar stores. Like, cheap, cheap. People can continue getting value by buying. Chris: In bulk and all that stuff. Plus, Costco has the delicious pizza. Kayla: They got the pizza, they got the hot dogs. The only one that really stands out samples. The samples. You make a meal out of those samples. The only one of this list that stands out to me is build a bear workshop. Chris: Because those people physically browse the merchandise. Kayla: You don't brow. You make a bear? Chris: Well, yeah. Kayla: How do you make a bear if. Chris: You can't see the bear?

57:22 Kayla: Build a bear workshop feels very specifically like a mall store. Chris: It does? Yeah, it does. Kayla: Kind of doesn't. And I don't mean to besmirch build a bear. I think I've had to build a bear, but, like, it's not any sort of necessity. It's kind of like, well, it feels. Chris: Like you always just find them in malls. So, like, how are they surviving when malls are dying? It feels like there's, it's like a parasite that all the hosts are dying. So how is it still around? Kayla: Right. I mean, I think that maybe it's just the next draw after sears, you'll be like, well, I go to the mall to go to Sears or Nordstrom or whatever. Oh, that's not there anymore. Well, I still go to the mall because it's the only place I can get build a bear. Like, there's not really a build a bear. Chris: Build a bear is anchoring. Kayla: I'm just saying there's not a build a bear alternative. Like, it's the only place to go to build your own bear.

58:08 Chris: That's true. Kayla: So maybe, as far as I'm aware, it's just so specific that it survives. Chris: Yeah, I guess if. Yeah, if you want to build a bear, you have to go. To build a bear, you have to. Kayla: Go build a bear. So I just thought that was an interesting little tidbit. Okay, tangent. Moving on. Given that there are now numerous empty stores, many of them extremely large spaces, once occupied by department or big box stores, as well as empty malls, an interesting economy has actually sprung up around these places. These locations are still owned by like realtors or real estate owners, whatever. Those people are rich people. They're still owned by rich people and companies like they want to make. They want to continue making money from these properties. And these properties are still located in cities or towns who want to make use of the properties. Some ways these empty spaces have been revitalized are as follows. Redevelopment into trendier open air shopping centers. Like, that's the big thing right now. It's like the mall can't just be a shopping experience.

59:09 Kayla: It needs to be like a different kind of experience. And right now we like to go to open air malls. That's consumer trend. Chris: I feel like I've heard that elsewhere that the trend is going towards like. Kayla: Making it a park almost. Chris: Yeah. Making it like a meeting communal place that, oh, there happens to be a shop here rather than like go to shop. Kayla: Right. Other uses are switching from retail use to office or school use. This one is great. Repurposing malls into megachurches or colocation centers, which is basically like a server. A server or data storage center available for use to multiple businesses. Put a bunch of servers in the mall.

59:50 Chris: That sounds weird. Kayla: Or probably the best one. Reopening the dead retail locations as homeless shelters. Side note, everyone should check out the Household name podcast. It's a Business Insider podcast. I'm very obsessed with it right now and it has a great episode on specifically. I forget what town it is in, but it's about a Macy's that closed and was reopened as a homeless shelter. And there's a woman who used to work at the Macy's who then ends up living in the homeless shelter in the Macy's. And it's just like a very, it's a really great episode. It has a, you know, not a terrible ending. I don't spoil anything, but it's just. Chris: She'S saying that because I made a, like a kind of a sad cringe face. Kayla: You made a very sad cringe face, which is allowed. It's not, it's not. Not a sad cringe topic anyway. Go listen to the topic. Go listen to the episode. Go listen to the podcast. It's great. But there's one other way these spaces get utilized. Post retail apocalypse pop ups, we've already mentioned that spirit Halloween occupies vacated retail locations. But it's not just as simple as the hermit crab metaphor of moving into a place once it's empty. It's actually a little more complex and interesting than that, but we're actually gonna save that for next time.

1:01:00 Chris: Oh, yeah. Kayla: In this episode, were just gonna. Chris: I have to wait. Well, I guess I don't have to wait. I can. I'm gonna hear about it soon. But everybody else is gonna have to wait. Kayla: Everyone else has to wait. Sorry. Yeah. This episode, we just wanted to give that backdrop and the history of the topic, just a little taste of spirit Halloween. And next episode, we'll dig into the true dirty details of the stores, how they work, what makes them tick, and that means in two weeks, we'll have a true Halloween episode for all of you. Woo hoo. But I guess before that. In the meantime, what do you think so far? Chris: Well, first of all, I think theming is just great. Theming is so important. It's like number two after schisms to know that you're real.

1:01:41 Kayla: Schisms. First theme. Chris: Second. Oh. Are you asking me what I think about spirit Halloween? Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Oh, well, I mean, we're not gonna do the judgment on this episode. Right? That's gonna be next episode. Kayla: That's gonna be next episode. But just, like, what are you thinking so far? Chris: Well, I mean, I don't wanna spoil my thoughts, but I'm not feeling the cult thing, but I'm definitely feeling the weird thing. And the retail. The retakalypse. Kayla: The retail apocalypse. Chris: The apocalypalypse. Yeah. That was really actually quite fascinating and made a lot of sense. Kayla: I know, right? Chris: It was like, I guess it's stuff that we all just kind of, like, know. But hearing the details of it was, like. And also having the name. The name is, like, pretty baller. Kayla: Right.

1:02:22 Chris: So the fact that spirit Halloween is sort of a vulture of the retail apocalypse. Kayla: Right? Chris: Maybe vultures, not the best word, but it's the first one I thought of. Kayla: So, like, what's a positive vulture? I guess vultures are positive, though. Chris: They are actually. They have formed a bad rap. They get a part of the ecosystem. Kayla: You know why they get a bad rapid? Chris: Because they're like, they have that, like, that crooked neck. Kayla: Sure they got the crooked neck, but really, I can trace it back directly for you. What gave them the bad name? Chris: Disney movies. Kayla: It was the Disney Robin Hood. Vultures were bad guys. Chris: Oh, man. Kayla: But they were also kind of dumb. Chris: Yeah, they were. They were dopey. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: They'll be bad guys. Chris: So how does this relate at all to what were talking about? Kayla: It doesn't. Oh. Chris: Because weird Halloween was. Kayla: Oh, yeah. Chris: Yeah. But. Okay, so they're good. Vultures. Beneficial moss that helps decompose.

1:03:08 Kayla: Are they lichen? Chris: They're lichen. Kayla: All right. Spirit Halloween stories. You heard it here first. They are lichen. Chris: Lichen. This episode. Kayla: Oh, my God. Can we just end this now, please? We have to be done. Chris: Canceled the podcast. Kayla: Oh, God. I'm Kayla. Chris: I'm Chris. Kayla: And tune back in two weeks when we have the second part for you of the spirit Halloween spectacular. Chris: Spectacular. Halloween themed spectacular. I apologize for that liking thing. Kayla: Yeah, well, we can't take it back. It's there. Chris: It's out. It's there. It's now it's gonna be on the Internet, too. So great. Kayla: Anyway, this has been cult or just weird.