With Halloween right around the corner, it’s like Christmas coming early for the Fallenstein family of Mankato.

 

“Everything we’ve worked for, everything we’ve planned for now happens. We get to see millions of orders go out and happy customers so its the best part of what we do,” Halloweencostumes.com President and CEO Tom Fallenstein said.

 

The company started 25 years ago when Jenice Fallenstein began sewing costumes for her four kids because she couldn’t find what she wanted in stores.

 

When the kids grew up, the family started renting their old costumes to their friends and neighbors out of their garage.

Within a few years, they were selling them online to customers around the world.

 

“We started out with clowns and Super Mario Brother, Superman, Soldier…simple things they wanted to be. Gingerbread Man,  a skunk, a dog,” Jenice Fallenstein said.

 

Since its humble beginnings, the company has grown to become one of the largest online Halloween costume companies in the world, with a 200,000 square foot distribution center in North Mankato.

It has 160 full-time employee and 2,000 seasonal workers who fill thousands of orders a day and will do 60 percent of the company’s business in the next month.

 

“It’s definitely not what I planned, but probably the job we all wished we had when we were eight because we ride around on scooters and we sell costumes for a living,” Tom Fallenstein said.

 

With Halloween getting bigger every year, so does the Fallenstein’s business.

 

“We continue to spread what my mom started for us, making the coolest costumes when we were little and now we get to do that for the world,” Tom Fallenstein said.

 

In case you’re wondering, Fallenstein says popular costumes this year are Wonder Woman, the scary clown from the movie “It”, and anything Star Wars.