Joseph F. Marver

Obviously, it's also Halloween season, so it's fun to talk about.

But the fact that these stores just open for a couple months, that they move into kind of random retail spaces and just do— crazy business uh for a few months and then they shut down it it's it's it makes it unique and there's a lot of advantages to that too that we'll get into but it is pretty cool um our founder of old spirit halloween is joseph marver he was born in saint paul minnesota in 1943 he moved to la as a young man where he became an entrepreneur started several businesses uh mostly in the clothing game he opened his initial store the jeanery great name

yeah

That was in Livermore, California.

Now, let's listen to the Fat Electrician to give the breakdown on the business background of Spirit Halloween.

Our story begins in the early 1980s with the founder of Spirit Halloween, a guy by the name of Joe Marver.

And no, I'm not about to tell you the story about some dude that grew up and his favorite holiday was Halloween, and he wanted to run a costume store, and he overcame adversity to run the biggest costume store in the world.

No.

And two, a very beneficial business model for anyone who has a similar type of line or product or service like Spirit Halloween.

So taking you back to 1983, Joe Marver was running a women's discount clothing store in Northern California in the Bay Area, and he put his dresses in storage, and he decided for the month of September and October that he was gonna fill his store with Halloween goods.

And reportedly, in that 45-day timeframe, he did just north of $100,000 in sales.

Now, back in 1983, that's pretty damn good.

Without talking about Spirit Halloween.

From my research, Spirit started in 1983 when Joseph Marver noticed a nearby costume shop was doing huge business.

He pivoted his clothing store into a seasonal Halloween shop and Spirit Halloween was born.

By 1999, Spirit had around 60 stores and was acquired by Spencer Gifts.