The Back to School season is one of the biggest periods for retail, second only to the holiday season in terms of sales. With holiday 2014 around the corner (115 days until Black Friday 2014!), it’s not a huge leap to assume that some of the “B2S” trends we’re seeing now will play out even further in the coming months.
Whether or not you’re buried in B2S now or planning Holiday 2014, read on for some B2S findings from Deloitte, the NRF, and AOL pulled from just-released B2S consumer surveys!
B2S Spending is Up! No it’s Down!
Deloitte, AOL/InternetRetailer, and the NRF all have updated surveys around the 2014 Back to School/College season. As far as spend expectations, there’s not much of a consensus:
- Deloitte says that average B2S spending is expected to be down 19.2% from $672 to $543.
- The NRF says that average B2S spending is expected to be up 5% from $635 to $669
Who is to believe? It may not really matter — what matters is that you get as much of that spend as possible. And to do that, what may matter most is where the spend is happening.
Both the NRF and Deloitte found that nearly 2 out of 5 (38%) will be shopping online. What more, Deloitte found that 57% say they’ll do research online first before purchasing B2S products in the physical store.
Below is Deloitte’s 2011-2014 trended data on where the shopping is happening — note that Deloitte pegged online shopping as just ever-so-much higher than office supply/technology store shopping (The NRF, on the other hand, has office supply stores higher in their survey at 42%).
While there are a few trends in play above, it’s worth calling out that in four years (2011-2014), Online sites have gone from last place in this list to second, doubling in popularity as a B2S destination.
Why online? Because it’s magically convenient.
AOL’s B2S survey found that the top reasons customers are going to shop online in 2014 are for better prices, quicker shopping, and avoiding crowds. I have two princesses at home—that is, one (The 5 year old) fancies herself Ninjago and will be starting Kindergarten in about a week. (The other—the 2.5 year old—she’s just a ham.)
As you might guess, these girls are a handful. Sure enough, I just talked to my exasperated wife and found that her plans to grab my up-and-coming Kindergartner’s school supplies today were thwarted. Apparently, my kids had other things in mind than taking advantage of the tax free weekend in Georgia to score 20 glue sticks (yes, the list requests twenty) and a host of other supplies.
So why are parents flocking to the online channel? AOL’s survey found 72% said online resources made shopping faster and another 72% of respondents said they gave them more choice. A further 1 out of 2 said they made it more fun.
As a parent, I see shopping online as the path of least resistance. No kids climbing on the shopping cart or playing with fragile items within reach. No arguing about toys or candy they want but can’t have. For parents of kids — at least young kids — stores are a lot of work.
Shopping online is just … easier.
And by online, I mean mobile.
Mobile is on everyone’s mind this B2S season. 84% of Deloitte’s survey respondents have smartphones and a full 3 out of 4 of these people (62% of the population) plan to use their smartphone to assist with back-to-school shopping.
As for what they’ll be doing with their devices, the NRF says about 37% will be researching products, 25% will find info about a physical store, and 22% will actually make a purchase (up 18% year over year).
As for when smartphone shoppers are actually in a store, AOL found they plan to do more product research (73%), find coupons (66%), look up customer reviews (61%), and compare prices (55%). Sounds about right.
When is all this B2S shopping going down?
Now, yes. But also there’s still more to come. As luck would have it, the two ways to answer this question were provided one each from Deloitte and the NRF.
The NRF’s answer focuses on when shoppers start. And on that front, they found about 1 in 4 will take advantage of late summer deals and shop one to two weeks before school. This compares to about 1 in 5 shopping at least two months before school starts. However, the sweet spot for when to start seems to be about three weeks to a month before school starts—grabbing about 45% of B2S shoppers.
But when will they be done? Deloitte has the answer! Here, only about 16% expect to be done with B2S shopping a month before the school year. Meanwhile, over half—54%—expect to complete B2S shopping inside the month before school begins. Another 26% will finish shopping after school begins.
Here the big takeaway is simple: back to school shopping is happening now but it won’t be over for many weeks yet. If I had to pick a date, I’d say September 15th.
(As you might have noticed, none of the above gets at Back to College. For that, just hop over to the NRF and Deloitte reports!)
So there you have it! Back to School Season is ON!
