Fall has become its own shopping season

• Fall has become its own sales season for major retailers.
• This year's fall-themed products include pumpkin samosas from Trader Joe's and candles from Aldi.

Fall has arrived in the US — and it's not just a season, but a shopping event.

Starbucks' pumpkin spice-flavored drinks have been an autumnal staple since the PSL was introduced in 2003, but multiple retailers are now offering wide selections of other fall-themed products. Depending on where you shop, you can find decor, candles, and samosas in fall flavors or colors.

The season used to be a relatively slow time for retailers, with no big sales to boost how much shoppers spent at stores. That has changed in recent times. Halloween sales have grown in the last few years, according to data from the National Retail Federation. Retailers have also added early holiday shopping events, such as Amazon's Prime Day, some of which started during the first week of October.

More widely, fall-themed products represent another way for retailers and brands to fill out their sales schedule, according to Ronald Hill, a professor of marketing at American University's Kogod School of Business.

"It's between what they can do in the summer and what they can do during the holidays," Hill said in an interview with Business Insider. "It gives you another twist around the calendar and a different season to be able to get people engaged."

Target's fall selection this year includes about 650 new food items, including 150 from Target's store brands, Rick Gomez, the retailer's chief commercial officer, said on the company's earnings call in August. Products include Glazed Pumpkin Spice donut holes and sandwich cookies shaped like jack-o-lanterns, both sold under Target's Favorite Day brand. "We know consumers are eager for their apple and pumpkin spice favorites," Gomez said.

Trader Joe's is offering 148 items with fall flavors or themes, from Mini Spicy Pumpkin Samosas to Pumpkin Body Scrub, according to the grocer's website.

It's not just food. Lowe's is offering items including fall harvest decor and lawn inflatables for Halloween, which is "bigger than ever before," executive vice president of merchandising Bill Boltz said in August. Home Depot's massive skeleton was such a hit in 2020 that it sold out before October; while its website shows the $299 12-foot Skelly is currently out of stock, customers can still buy a 7-foot Skelly's Dog for $199.

On a Facebook page dedicated to discount grocer Aldi, shoppers posted pictures last month of themselves with some of the chain's seasonal candles, which come in scents such as Autumn Lakeside Lodge and Pumpkin S'mores.

It's not clear how much sales of all fall-themed goods are worth. However, sales of pumpkin spice products alone totaled about $802 million in the 12 months to July 2023, according to NielsenIQ.

American University's Hill said that pumpkin spice and other flavors common in fall products remind many consumers of farm stands, pumpkin patches, and other attractions in rural areas at this time of the year. Retailers are "trading on the idea that if you want what is natural in the world, you come to us," Hill said.

"I don't know if there's any pumpkin in it or even any pumpkin flavor to it, but it captures the imagination of having a fresh product," he said.