Michaels expands party assortment, adds customization bars and lower prices

Michaels is widening The Party Shop by 60% in 2026, adding nearly 600 new products, and that is the part Big Lots seasonal teams should pay attention to first. The chain is not just filling shelves with more balloons, decorations and piñatas. It is pairing the assortment push with exclusive customization bars and lower prices on hundreds of party items, a reminder that party retail is won by convenience, not just by being cheap.

The mix matters. Michaels said the expansion covers licensed themes including Bluey, Hello Kitty and Stitch, the kind of recognizable names that help turn a birthday or classroom event into a faster buying decision. Michaels’ party site says it has sliced prices on 100s of party supplies, offers 60-plus party themes and sells private events starting at $149. Over the past year, Michaels said it had already grown its party assortment to more than 4,500 party supplies and balloons across 60-plus themes, which suggests this is a scale-up of a category it has been building, not a one-off experiment.

For Big Lots associates, the lesson is practical. Party shopping is an impulse-heavy, deadline-driven trip, and shoppers usually want the whole mission solved in one stop. That is where merchandising skill shows up: stronger endcaps, tighter cross-merchandising and better add-on selling around birthdays, holidays and household celebrations. A balloon display that sits near tableware, favors and banners does more work than a lone stack of seasonal goods. A party aisle that feels complete can create the same effect as a well-run checkout lane or a busy seasonal front end.

Big Lots still lists Seasonal as a category alongside home décor, toys and other departments, which reinforces why that space matters on the floor. Seasonal is one of the few areas where presentation, timing and speed can change a customer’s basket size in a single visit. If the display solves the event, the sale gets bigger. If it looks thin or scattered, the shopper leaves after buying only the bare minimum.

The comparison carries extra weight because Big Lots filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on September 9, 2024, citing inflation and high interest rates, and the case later moved into a sale and asset wind-down process. In that setting, every seasonal square foot has to earn its keep. Michaels’ move is a clean example of how a retailer can use assortment depth, in-store theater and affordability at the same time, and that is the playbook Big Lots workers can read as a test of how well a store turns traffic into transactions.