Back-to-School Shopping List for Retail Businesses

Shoppers are going to spend more on back-to-school products this year. Premise can help retail businesses ensure they’re ready to ace this test.

By Matt Lindner, Senior Content Marketing Manager

The back-to-school shopping season is in full swing. Retail businesses that are trying to make the transition back to school less hectic for shoppers in retail stores need to have their own actionable back-to-school shopping list ready to go.

There are a couple of reasons for that. Students are gradually starting to return to classrooms after a year of mostly remote learning. Given the rise of the Delta variant of the coronavirus, there’s likely still going to be some remote learning in place for some school districts across the country. That means products that haven’t traditionally been thought of as school supplies, such as masks and hand sanitizer, are going to be on school supply lists once again this year.

Also, people are spending more on back-to-school supplies this year. The National Retail Federation (NRF) reports that parents of kids in high school and younger will spend an average of $848.90 on back to school supplies. That’s 7.5% more per family than last year. Overall spending on back-to-school supplies is expected to reach $37.1 billion this year, up 9.4% from $33.9 billion last year.

With time running out in the season, which is expected to run through the end of August, retail businesses need to understand shoppers’ back-to-school shopping needs after a school year unlike any other.

The good news — Premise Data’s Contributors are poised and ready to help. Our Contributors, many of whom are the back-to-school shoppers you are trying to reach in urban, suburban, and rural areas, get paid to complete tasks every single day at a rate of 1 million per week. Our Contributors are ready, they’re engaged, and they’re motivated.

Here’s what should be on every retail business’s back-to-school shopping list this year:

• Compliance Checks: With COVID-19 lockdowns having lifted, store spending is expected to play a bigger role in overall back-to-school shopping this year. Brands need to ensure that their products are displayed properly in key stores or markets. Premise can work with you to create tasks in specific markets that show you, in real-time, how your products are being displayed and what adjustments need to be made.
• Inventory Checks: Nothing is more disappointing to a shopper than needing a specific product only to find that it’s out of stock in a particular store. Brands should create tasks aimed at helping them determine which products are available in which stores to help them identify where they might need to reallocate their resources.
• Price Monitoring: Good deals on some much needed school supplies get back-to-school shoppers excited. Improper pricing could turn a shopper off of your brand and onto a competitor’s. Brands should be creating price monitoring tasks in key markets to understand how their products are being priced in specific stores compared to their competitors and work with stores to make adjustments where appropriate.

Ready to accelerate your back-to-school sales results? Get in touch with us today.