Local businesses are doing all they can to cash in on the rush of students willing to spend big bucks for that full Flavor Flav costume this Halloween.

Kathy Grannis, National Retail Federation spokeswoman, said consumers are expected to spend almost $5 billion this Halloween season, compared to last year's $3.29 billion.

Michael Thomas, manager of Party City, 32 Colonnade Way, said Halloween is the biggest holiday seller for the Party City chain and most of the Halloween merchandise was sold out by yesterday.

"Halloween is our biggest season for the year," he said. "It's one-third to one-half of everything all year."

Thomas said Party City is a seasonal shop and sells everything related to Halloween.

"[Top sellers for] college girls, anything sleazy -- males, anything funny," he said.

Shelley Banker, owner of The Rag and Bone, 240 E. Calder Way, said Halloween is the busiest season of the year.

"Sales for [the Friday before Halloween] are equivalent to sales I make in a month," she said. "I always kind of rely on Halloween as a good money-making part of the year."

Banker said The Rag and Bone, which caters to people in search of a decade-specific costume, has vintage clothing available all year round, but the Halloween season brings in the most revenue because of the hunt for fabulous flapper dresses.

She added that because some of the clothing is one of a kind and can be expensive, her store offers certain pieces to rent.

She said this is attractive to students who don't want to spend a lot of money for something they wear once, but still want a good costume.

"With my stuff, the rentable option kind of works both ways," she said. "They only wear it once, so it's a reduced price and I get it back to rent again."

Gift Adventures, 137 E. Beaver Ave., which sells both traditional and distinctive Halloween paraphernalia, is stocked with everything from pirate costumes to Ricky Bobby jumpsuits, manager Gary Filkins said.

He added that this year they even decided to sell old Easter bunny rental costumes, which sold out yesterday.

"The guys just love them," he said.

He added that the most popular female costume was a referee because it is cute, comfortable and not too short.

"We definitely adjust based on what we purchase and sell the year before," he said.

Filkins said Gift Adventures is geared toward the college crowd and most students buy their costumes last minute.

"We did have a waiting line to get into the store on Thursday, Friday and Saturday," he said. "The students kind of wait until the last minute."

He said most people were buying costumes for parties that weekend.

Filkins said Halloween is still the second biggest holiday compared to Christmas because of the shortened time period.

He said Gift Adventures only carries Halloween merchandise from Oct. 1 to Nov. 1.

Other local businesses didn't sell costumes but cashed in on the Halloween spirit.

Lynn Pellas, manager of Uncle Eli's, 129 E. Beaver Ave., said her store is offering a 15 percent discount to any customer wearing a costume.

"It's just a way to get people more involved with our store," she said.

"The store next door did a lot of costume business, and we were hoping [customers would] stop in and get the discount."

Pellas said her employees dressed up in costume over the weekend as well.

Carrie Klimek, Uncle Eli's assistant manager, dressed as a Dutch girl for work over the weekend and said only a few people actually took advantage of the discount, but it did boost business.