Snap is selling an $80 dancing hot dog Halloween costume

Snap Inc. is now in the hot dog costume business.

Ahead of Halloween—and a third-quarter earnings report that could be equally scary, based on recent precedent—Snap

SNAP, -2.11%

 has released a dancing hot dog costume that will allow fans to dress up as Snapchat’s biggest virtual star. Chief Executive Evan Spiegel called the hot dog, which can dance into Snapchat users’ videos, “likely the world’s first augmented reality superstar” after last quarter’s earnings, saying that he had been viewed 1.5 billion times.

Augmented reality, or AR, puts virtual creations into physical worlds through a smartphone or other device, and has become a greater focus for tech companies since the success of the smartphone game “Pokémon Go.” Tech giants have been focusing on offering AR services to developers and users, including Apple Inc.

AAPL, -0.44%

 , Alphabet Inc.’s Google

GOOGL, +0.17%

GOOG, +0.06%

 and Snap’s biggest rival, Facebook Inc.

FB, -0.05%

 , which has duplicated many of the Snapchat app’s features.

Snap’s dancing hot dog costume is for sale on Amazon.com Inc.’s

AMZN, -1.20%

 marketplace for $79. The seller is listed as Spectacles by Snap Inc., the company’s hardware division that introduced sunglasses that can record video for Snapchat users.

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A company spokeswoman said in an email that it releases Snapchat-themed products as a bonus for its users every so often. In the past it has release a ghost stuffed animal, a beach towel, and a backpack. Snap did not respond to questions about how the new costume business would impact the company’s top or bottom line or about its future costume plans.

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Snap’s main products, an app and a gadget, generated second-quarter losses of $443 million on sales of $181 million, narrowing from a $2.2 billion loss in the first quarter on sales of $149 million. The majority of Snap’s sales are from advertisements and content deals related to Snapchat, a social app popular with millennials; Snap’s “other” revenue category brought in $5.4 million last quarter, mostly from its Spectacles product.

Snap is set to report third-quarter earnings Nov. 8 after the close, and analysts on average project third-quarter losses will narrow to $378 million on sales of $239 million, according to FactSet. Snap stock is down 35.7% this year after the company’s huge initial public offering in the first quarter, while the S&P 500 index

SPX, +0.07%

 has gained 14.3% in that time.