What do your children want to be this Halloween? Fireman? Hello Kitty? Or Harry Potter? It’s really nice if you can create dress for your kids, but, since weare already over worked it’s more practical to buy costumes for them. Fortunately (or in some sense, unfortunately), there are many places that you can get Halloween costumes these days. However, you may not always be able to find what your kids want; so here are some tips to make the shopping easier. 1. Ask your children what they want to be early so that you can get early. Don’t wait till two days before. Order as early as you can. Halloween costume warehouses need to order fixed quantities of costumes from China early in the year, and if they run out of stock, you cannot get them until the next Halloween. 2. Find a local Halloween shop, and go there early. Go to a specialist, not a toy store, not CVS. The Halloween costume specialist has 100 times more than a normal toy store. Another advantage of the local Halloween stores are that you can actually try it on before purchasing it. This, however, is often not the case if you wait till the end of October. A few days before Halloween, most places won’t let you try things, since they are far too busy. 3. If you can’t find the costumes locally go online. There are many, many online costume sites, and all of them push Halloween outfits during this time of the year. Although most of them have “everything”, some online shop are specialized in a particular field. 4. Since most sites carry the same outfits from the same vendors, things you need to pay attention to are the shipping cost, shipping time, shipping method, and more importantly return policy. If they do not tell anything about the return policy, don’t purchase from the sites. Most trustfworthy sites do have a return policy posted, and usually give you about 30 days to return. Take a look an exmaple: Gryffindor robe for my son. He tried the costume and it all fit perfectly; he was happy, but the store did not have any costumes for me. So, I went to my computer and typed “buy Adult Harry Potter costumes” on google. Wow, there are more than 100,000 entries! I could choose a google ad sites, but I decided to check out a few highly ranked online stores. Some of them are full blown costume sites, and some of them are specialized for Harry Potter costumes. Before ordering even one thing, I looked into the shipping information. The shipping fee is relatively cheap, and some shops have a flat rate, and for others, if you order more it gets cheaper. Then I read the return policy. Yes, this store had a 30 day return policy. While I was checking out the Harry Potter costumes, I also found Gryffindor ties, caps and scarves, and even a fake lightening bolt tattoo! Yes, I spent more than I thought I would spend, but I am ready for the trick or treat, and even for my company Halloween party! Now, you’ve got the idea. I recommend going to a speciality shop first (skip toy stores), but you also should check on line. In either case, you should do itearly; once they are gone, you won’t get them this season for sure!