US-based party and Halloween retailer Party City has announced that it will be rolling out a pilot programme on Amazon.com ahead of the Halloween season this year.
Although an assortment of items will initally be available on the Amazon website, the core focus will be on Halloween costumes.
Halloween is Party City’s biggest selling season and, according to the US National Retail Federation, was worth $9.1 billion in 2017.
According to Party City ceo James Harrison, the retailer’s intention with the Amazon pilot is to reach customers who are increasingly gravitating toward shopping online, including millennials.
“The programme also creates an additional channel of distribution that allows us to leverage our dynamic manufacturing and distribution capabilities,” he added, pointing out that Party City will also continue to run its own independent ecommerce website.
An official statement from Party City said that it expects the pilot programme to expand to other product categories for Christmas and the New Year, while ‘further expansion [is] possible in 2019’.
Party City shares rose by nearly 5% following the news.
