How to Decorate Your Shop Window for Halloween
You have got a window, a bit of budget and not much time. This is what to put in it, where to put it, and what to leave out. Everything here goes up in an afternoon and comes down in twenty minutes, which matters when the 1st of November is a normal trading day.
What is on this page
- Pick one idea and let the window breathe
- Warning tape, corner to corner
- Cobweb: pull it thin
- Spend on one big thing, not five small ones
- Most of your Halloween trade walks past after dark
- Carry it past the glass
- Give them somewhere to take a photo
- Two things to get right before you start
1. Pick one idea and let the window breathe
People read your window from a moving pavement, in about a second and a half. Two or three elements land. Ten do not.
Pick one: bats across the top pane, a cluster of pumpkins low in one corner, or Trick or Treat lettering at eye height. Build around that and stop. If you are standing inside wondering whether to add one more thing, the answer is no.
The Shop Window Halloween Kit is £17.99 and covers this section on its own.
2. Warning tape, corner to corner
Two minutes, and it does more than anything else on this list.
Run it corner to corner in an X across the glass, or straight across the bottom third like a cordon. Press it on from the inside so rain does not lift it. It looks deliberate even when it is crooked, which is the point.
3. Cobweb: pull it thin
The mistake is using too much. Stretched thin across a corner it reads as cobweb. Left in a clump it reads as a bag of cotton wool.
Take a piece the size of your palm and pull it until you can see through it, then hook it on three points. One can does a whole window with plenty left over. Keep it away from lights and heaters.
4. Spend on one big thing, not five small ones
One large prop at the back of the window gives you a display. Five small ones give you clutter, five things to store and five things to put up next year.
Put the big piece at the back or hang it high, then let the small pieces sit in front and below it.
5. Most of your Halloween trade walks past after dark
Trick-or-treaters, people heading out to eat, the after-work crowd. If your window only works in daylight you are missing the busiest part of the evening.
Two LED pumpkin lanterns on the window ledge will do it. Put them at the front, facing into the shop, so they light the display rather than shining out at the street. Leave them on until closing.
Two LED pumpkin lanterns come in the Storefront & Entrance Kit, £26.99, along with the floor stickers and garland for the next section.
6. Carry it past the glass
The window gets them looking. The door gets them in.
Footprint stickers leading from the pavement to your entrance, a garland over the doorframe, and that is the doorway done. This is also the fix if your window is small, high up or half blocked by a display unit.
7. Give them somewhere to take a photo
If you are a café, salon, pub or restaurant, put a prop frame or a backdrop somewhere with decent light and nothing messy behind it.
People photograph it, post it, and your shopfront is in the picture. It costs you one corner.
The photo props are in the Restaurant & Pub Trading Kit, £48.99.
8. Two things to get right before you start
Keep props and anything trailing clear of the doorway and any step or ramp. Nobody should have to go around a skeleton to get in.
And match the tone to whoever is walking past while it is up. If you have got families in during the day, keep it to pumpkins, bats and ghosts. Fake blood belongs somewhere that is adults only after dark.
Which one do you need?
| Kit | Covers | What is in it | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shop Window Halloween Kit | A window and nothing else | Cobweb spray, cobweb with spiders, a 3m hanging spider web, pumpkin swirls, glow-in-the-dark bat and ghost stickers, warning tape and Trick or Treat lettering | £17.99 |
| Storefront & Entrance Halloween Kit | Window plus the doorway and the pavement | Everything in the window kit, plus two LED pumpkin lanterns, footprint floor stickers, a 3m bat garland and a Danger Keep Out plaque | £26.99 |
| Restaurant & Pub Halloween Trading Kit | A room, a bar and a night on | Everything above, plus an 80cm hanging skull, twelve LED tealights, eighteen spiders, a 12-piece photo prop set and an LED light curtain | £48.99 |
Questions people ask
Is cobweb spray a fire risk near lights?
It burns, so keep it away from bulbs, heaters and anything with a flame. Use LED lighting near it and you have removed most of the problem. If you hold a licence it is worth two minutes against your fire safety plan first, because councils have written to licensees about exactly this. Our fire safety checklist goes through it properly.
When should I put it up?
Most shops go up in the first half of October, which gives you three or four weeks of people walking past it. If you are a pub or restaurant aiming at the night itself, a week out is plenty.
Will it put customers off?
Only if you pitch it wrong for who is actually in. Daytime cafés and family shops do well with pumpkins and friendly ghosts. Anything genuinely frightening suits an evening crowd who came out for it.
I have got ten minutes. What is the one thing?
Warning tape across the glass in an X, and one window sticker. That is it. It still reads from across the road.
Do I need permission if I rent?
Check your lease before anything adhesive goes on the glass or anything gets fixed to the frame. Static stickers and freestanding props are almost never an issue, but it is one email to be sure.
Running a pub or restaurant? There is a version of this written for venues, and a fire safety checklist if you hold a licence.