It all started in a garage.
Fun.com was the brainchild of Jenice Fallenstein, who had a sewing machine and a love of costumes. She hand-crafted unique costumes for her children every Halloween.
The Fallenstein family transformed that love of Halloween and homemade costumes into a small costume rental shop in their garage so the whole town of Mankato could experience her designs.
In the beginning, they only had 20 costumes but the shop became an instant hit.
Along came son Tom Fallenstein, who brought the business online in 2001 under the name Flappercostumes.com. In 2008, Tom Fallenstein acquired HalloweenCostumes.com, which has since become the largest online-only retailer of Halloween costumes.
They carry more than 13,000 styles of costumes with accessories and home decorations to match — many of which the HalloweenCostumes.com team designs in-house.
“Tom brought the business online after he graduated from college and sales have just exploded ever since then,” said Fun.com’s Lee Burg, paid social and partnerships manager.
Now, Fun.com is the parent company of HalloweenCostumes.com. HalloweenCostumes.com is currently the company’s main focus given that it’s October and the majority of their revenue comes from the HalloweenCostumes.com site, said Allison Davis, influencer and PR specialist.
More than 60% of Fun.com sales come from HalloweenCostumes.com, Burg said.
Fun.com has 225 year-round employees, and 2,000 seasonal employees. The company’s North Mankato warehouse is 200,000 square feet and its Kentucky warehouse is 250,000 square feet.
Costumes range in size from infant to 8X, and just this year 1,300 costumes were added to their inventory. The most popular seller is the toddler Spider-Man costume, Burg said.
“Everyone here embraces goofy, nerdy fun,” he said. “They embrace that side of themselves. Halloween becomes a whole month-long celebration for us.”
Fun.com follows movie trends, creating characters from movies like Beetlejuice and Deadpool.
Though Halloween is their busiest time, the company sees activity year-round from every holiday, including the Fourth of July, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Christmas and Easter — any time where people wear a costume, Burg said.
Book characters are also big for them.
Heather Frank, product design manager at Fun.com, said being trendy is part of the fun.
“We see first-hand that pop culture stuff,” she said. “Seeing a product come to life and seeing it on our site and looking awesome is super fulfilling.”
Frank’s design team is currently finishing 2025 designs and will soon start development of 2026 designs.
Fun.com ships to every U.S. state and to Canada, United Kingdom and Australia, among other countries. Burg said he’s confident they’re “No. 1 in the industry.”
“Our main goal every year is to make memories for as many families as we can,” he said. “That’s our whole company motto is to help create memories for families that will last a lifetime through trick-or-treating and wonderful costumes.”