With less than a month until Halloween, Hobokenites' superstore options for procuring the hippest and scariest costumes just doubled. On the heels of Spirit Halloween opening a costume superstore last week at 59 Washington Street, Ricky's NYC made its return to the Mile Square yesterday when it opened a pop-up store a few blocks north at 222 Washington Street.

After Halloween season wraps up, the costume-themed version of Ricky's NYC will close down for a few weeks and then reopen as its usual novelty store on a permanent basis at the beginning of December, said Ricky's NYC founder and chairman Todd Kenig. The new Ricky's NYC will feature all its typical mainstays and will also boast a full service salon.

"We love Hoboken and can't wait to be here permanently," Kenig said.

Kenig said that Ricky's will provide a contrast to Spirit Halloween with its merchandise, which is geared more toward an adult sensibility, and that the store plans to offer exclusive deals to locals in an effort drive foot traffic in the door.

As far as what costumes will be big sellers this season, Kenig said, "This year we anticipate the most popular costumes to be celebrity-inspired costumes, light-up costumes and Ricky's NYC exclusives."

Fittingly, Ricky's NYC, which opened its first store in 1989, is offering a line of costumes based on the cast of MTV's Jersey Shore, which will allow Halloween revelers to disguise themselves as Snooki or The Situation, both of whom have graced the Mile Square with self-promotional appearances this year.

In addition, Kenig said Ricky's anticipates its Lady Gaga line, which offers 23 costume varieties inspired by the eccentric pop star, to be big sellers, though he noted that Gaga's much talked about meat outfit is not one of the available options. Kenig added that the company expects its offbeat line of dictator costumes featuring the dastardly likes of Kim Jong Il to be big hits this season as well.

If Spirit is the Goliath of Halloween pop-up stores, with over 800 locations nationwide, then Ricky's NYC, with just over 70 stores mostly in New York City, is David. That disparity is also illustrated in the sizes of the retail spaces the two stores are occupying: Spirit's location, formerly occupied by Barnes & Noble, is about 10,00 square feet while Ricky's location, most recently a Washington Mutual Bank, is 3,000 square feet. But competition for the Hoboken Halloween market share promises to be fierce.

All of this pop-up store mania may have you asking: is the market here in a mile-square city really substantial enough for the David and Goliath of costume superstores to both rake in big profits?

"My professional guess is yes," said Christina Norsig, CEO of Pop-Up Insider, an online real estate exchange place that helps temporary retailers and landlords interested in short-term leases find one another. "Where one falls short in terms of variety the other may have it," she said of why both store are likely to thrive this season.

Norsig points to Spirit Halloween's significant growth to more than 800 stores this year as an indication of the potential for Halloween-related sales. "It's an enormous market," said Norsig of Halloween seasonal retail. "It's kind of like Christmas—families get into it, schools participate. They [Spirit Halloween and Ricky's NYC} are savvy marketeers."

Indeed, Kenig said Ricky's NYC Halloween stores account for about 15-20 percent of the company's annual $50 million in revenue.

But according to Edward Mermelstein, a Manhattan real estate attorney who represents many landlords that have rented spaces to pop-up retailers, the reason pop-up stores pop up isn't always because the retailer is necessarily expecting to move a lot of product and realize a profit windfall.

"Opening a pop-up store allows businesses to test a location and not commit to a long lease," said Mermelstein, adding that the financial risk of opening a pop-up store is minimal because landlords typically offer discounted rent for short leases. "The landlord fills a space, so it's a plus-plus for both sides," said Mermelstein.

Norsig said the pop-up concept is becoming increasingly popular with landlords because, in the current economic climate, which has resulted in 12 percent retail vacancy nationwide, landlords want to create a buzz and action around their properties instead of allowing them to sit vacant for months on end. A vacant store can lead to a negative perception and actually deter potential long-term tenants, Norsig said. Plus, short-term tenants sometimes become long-term tenants.

"Retail is a social enterprise," said Norsig, adding that having a pop-up store in business only temporarily can result in a boon for neighboring businesses on the block. Halloween stores, she said, typically generate a lot of action, which filters out to adjacent shops. Then, there are the temporary jobs created buy a pop-up store. "These stores hire cashiers, security, back-stock people," said Norsig.

Demonstrating Mermelstein's and Norsig's points about pop-up stores functioning as bellwethers and short-term leases turning into long-term ones, Kenig said the reason Hoboken shoppers will be privy to Ricky's assortment of hair and cosmetics supplies—not to mention its vast reserve of adult novelties—on a permanent basis is because of last year's successful market test.