Halloween is the most date-critical season on the calendar. The shelf date is fixed to the last week of September and the first week of October, the buying decision sits in the middle of the year, and there is no second attempt: a container that arrives in November has missed the season entirely. We supply wholesale Halloween decorations from China across pumpkins and lanterns, hanging and yard decor, props and figures, party tableware, LED lighting and novelty accessories - the depth a supermarket, discount chain, party retailer or e-commerce seller needs to fill a Halloween fixture.
Halloween is a novelty season, which means the range is led by shape and by finish rather than by material, and a single programme will run through several materials at once. Resin and polyresin carry the sculpted props and figures - skulls, ravens, hands and pumpkins - where the finish is judged on moulding crispness, paint separation and the depth of the wash that makes the piece read as aged. Latex, PVC and blow-moulded plastic cover the cheaper figures and the yard pieces, and here wall thickness, seam quality and colour fastness to light are what decide whether the piece survives a month outdoors.
Fabric and textiles handle the soft side: burlap and gauze for garlands and hanging ghosts, felt for bats and bunting, and printed fabric for flags and bunting strings. Wood and MDF give the craft and value lines - laser-cut signs, hanging plaques and printed tabletop pieces - and metal, usually tinplate or powder-coated steel, is used for buckets, lanterns and candle holders. Glass appears as votive and jar vessels, and paper and board cover honeycomb shapes, printed tabletop items and treat boxes.
LED lighting is a category of its own and is treated as an electrical product rather than as decoration: light strings, projectors, flicker candles and battery tea lights, in warm white, orange, purple and multi-colour, in a range of string lengths and with the control and battery options a retail buyer wants. Whichever material a design uses, the finish and the electrical specification are approved on a physical pre-production sample, because paint tone and light colour both read differently on a screen and under retail light.
A Halloween fixture is built from a small number of groups, and it is the mix that fills the aisle:
Send the planogram or the fixture size you are buying for and we will propose a mix at defined price points, with the lighting and the decor balanced so the fixture reads as one story.
Halloween touches several regulated product categories at once, which is why the compliance route is agreed before production rather than at the port.
Shihm is a trading company rather than a testing laboratory, so we do not issue certificates: we work with partner factories, confirm the test route against your destination and your customer's specification sheet, and support third-party inspection and testing with a nominated laboratory on request, with the reports issued under that laboratory's name.
Halloween mixes fragile and bulky goods in one order, so the packing plan is built around the two failure modes: breakage on ceramic and glass, and cube on props, pumpkins and textiles. Units are individually wrapped, cartons are interleaved and corner-protected, and the master carton is designed against a defined drop test. Props and pumpkins are nested or sleeved to cut cube, lighting is packed with the battery compartment empty and the polarity protected, and textile items are bagged to keep them clean.
The lighting part of the order adds a documentation constraint rather than a shipping one: the test reports and the listing mark have to match the exact string that ships, so the product code, the string length and the number of LEDs are frozen at sampling and not changed afterwards. Where a programme mixes decor, lighting and tableware, the whole order travels on one container plan and one set of documents, with the lighting cartons kept away from direct sun and from deck stowage.
Halloween complaints cluster around a small set of predictable faults, and each one has a control point:
Every lot is inspected against the approved pre-production sample before loading, and the inspection report travels with the shipping documents.
Start from the fixture and the price ladder, then work back to the specification. A programme that carries a whole Halloween aisle usually runs three tiers: an entry tier of small props, hanging items and treat boxes that gives volume at a low unit price; a mid tier of lanterns, pumpkins and tabletop figures that gives the fixture its shape; and a small feature tier of large props and lighting that makes the aisle worth walking into. Keeping the entry tier on stock shapes is what keeps sampling cost and minimum order quantities low enough to test a new idea inside a mixed container.
Two decisions matter more than the design list. First, settle the colour and theme direction once - classic orange and black, a muted vintage palette, or a bright party look - because a fixture that mixes three stories looks like a remainder bin. Second, buy the lighting with the decor: the string colour temperature and the decor finish should match, and buying both from one order is the only way to guarantee they do. On lighting, keep the range short and the specification fixed, because every extra variant is another set of test reports and another code to freeze.
A standard programme takes eight to ten weeks end to end: seven to ten days for counter samples, thirty to forty-five days for production after deposit and twenty-five to thirty-five days sea freight. New moulds or a custom electrical specification add fifteen to twenty days at the sampling stage.
Halloween is a fixed date, and the whole schedule is quoted backwards from it:
Tell us the shelf date at the start and we will work backwards from it and confirm the last acceptable order date in writing, with the production and sailing dates that make it achievable.
What is your MOQ for Halloween decorations? From 500 pcs per design on stock shapes; 1,000-3,000 pcs where custom moulds, a custom print or a custom lighting specification are involved.
What are your lead times for a Halloween order? Seven to ten days for counter samples, thirty to forty-five days for production after deposit, plus twenty-five to thirty-five days sea freight to Europe or the US East Coast.
When is the last order date for Halloween? For a 31 October shelf, goods have to be at the distribution centre by mid-September, which puts the last order date at mid-June for stock shapes and mid-May where new tooling or a custom electrical specification is needed.
Are your light strings listed? We produce to the electrical specification agreed with your market and work with the factory and, where required, a nominated laboratory so the finished string carries the listing your retailer asks for - a UL or ETL listing for the US, CE and UKCA for Europe - with the reports issued under that laboratory's name.
How do you handle battery safety? Coin and button cells are secured so a child cannot reach them, with a compartment pull test on the finished product; lithium cells come with the UN38.3 transport test summary, and battery and WEEE registration applies in several markets.
Are the candle lanterns fire-safe? Lanterns and candle holders are assessed for fire safety with the candle they ship with - EN 15493 and EN 15494 in the EU, ASTM F2601 and ASTM F2058 in the United States - and the finished assembly is the tested article.
Are child-appealing props tested as toys? Where a piece is intended for or plainly appeals to children it is tested to EN 71-1/-2/-3 and the Toy Safety Directive in the EU or ASTM F963 and CPSIA in the United States, and carries the matching age grading and tracking label.
Can you match our colour direction or our own sample? Yes. Send a physical sample or a Pantone reference and we will confirm the match on a pre-production sample and keep the approved piece as the reference for production.
Can you supply decor, lighting and tableware on one container? Yes. Decor, lighting and tableware are weight-and-cube mixed into one loading plan and one set of documents, which is how a wide Halloween range stays economic to ship.
How do we start a Halloween programme? Send reference images, your target retail price points, the electrical specification you need and the shelf date; we will come back with factory options, a sample timetable and a landed cost estimate.