Founded in 1947 by Max Spencer Adler in Easton, Pennsylvania, Spencer’s Gifts sold novelty items through a mail-order catalog. Harry Adler, Max’s brother, who had been with the company since 1947, sold his shares and left in 1960. Spencer’s Gifts opened its first retail store in 1963 in the Cherry Hill Mall in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, where it continues to operate to this day. After opening approximately 450 stores under the name Spencer Gifts, Adler sold Spencer Gifts to entertainment conglomerate MCA in 1967. Spencer’s Gifts was completely rebranded after being put under new management in 2003.
spencer’s gifts closed its mail-order catalog division in 1990.
The first GLOW! store opened in 1996, and in 1993, Spencer’s Gifts acquired the DAPY line of stores. Shop. You’ll love the DAPY and GLOW! The DAPY and GLOW! trademarks were retired prior to 2007. In 2021, both GLOW! and DAPY returned to business under private ownership. 1995, MCA was acquired by Seagram Company Ltd. and renamed Universal Studios. Spencer Gifts began operating Universal Studios stores as a subsidiary of its parent company.
Spencer’s gifts opened its first store in Canada in 1997.
Spencer’s acquired Spirit Halloween in 1999, a seasonal retailer founded by Joseph Marver in 1983. The retailer operated 60 temporary stores at the time. Spirit’s stores are only open in the two months prior to Halloween, but its website is available all year. Most of the stores operate out of the spaces of recently vacated businesses. Approximately half of Spencer’s annual revenue of $250 million comes from Spirit Restaurants, which had over 1,000 locations as of 2013. In 2000, Spencer’s expanded into the United Kingdom. During the mid-2000s, the chain opened up to 14 stores in the United Kingdom before closing them. Universal Studios was acquired by Vivendi in 2001, and the entire organization was renamed Vivendi Universal Entertainment. Around the same time that Vivendi was preparing to sell majority ownership of Universal Studios to NBC, the Gordon Brothers Group and Palladin Capital Group formed GB Palladin, a joint venture that acquired Spencer’s gifts from Vivendi. As a result of the sale, Steven Silverstein became the CEO of Spencer’s Gifts as well as the president and CEO of Spirit Halloween.
Spencer’s began redesigning its stores in the fall of 2004.
Spencer’s began its “Spirit of Children” program in 2006, which raises donations and hosts Halloween parties for children’s hospitals in Canada and the United States through its Spirit Halloween stores. More than 130 children’s hospitals have received over $16 million through this program since 2007. The company was acquired by ACON Investments in 2007 and sold to Spencer’s management in 2015. By making misleading statements in its advertising for its “Reduce-Eze” girdles in 1962, Spencer’s Gifts violated the Federal Trade Commission Act and was ordered to discontinue making false claims. Spencer’s gifts were found by the FTC in 1969 to have misrepresented its jewelry products through the use of terms such as “stone”, “birthstone”, and “gold”. Since its jewelry did not contain any “genuine precious or semiprecious stones” nor was its metal 24 karat gold, Spencer’s gifts was ordered to stop using deceptive statements in the promotion of its jewelry.
