Stores’ harsh lesson
School buying will plunge: forecast
SHOPPERS WILL be watching their wallets and cutting back on back-toschool spending this summer, a new report shows.
Households with children in kindergarten through college are expected to spend a total of $68 billion on school supplies, clothing and electronics — a near 10% drop from 2014’s forecast, according to the National Retail Federation’s annual Back-to-School Spending Survey.
The average family with children in grades kindergarten through 12 plans to spend $630.36, down from $669.28 last year, the federation said Wednesday.
Excluding college, spending will total $24.9 billion, down 6% from last year.
“Parents this summer will inventory their children’s school supplies and decide what is needed and what can be reused, which just makes good budgeting sense for families with growing children,” federation CEO Matthew Shay said in a statement.
But any pullback in spending would be a blow to retailers already slogging through a slowdown in sales through the first half of the year.
Revenue from the back-to-school shopping season that typically begins in mid-July and runs through early September is second only to the Christmas season for many retailers.
A government report Tuesday showed overall June retail sales unexpectedly fell 0.3%, with receipts at clothing stores dipping 1.5% from May and electronics down 0.4% from June 2014.
A recent survey from coupon site RetailMeNot also found that households plan to trim spending by about 6% from last year.
“Spending … looks like it will be down slightly from last year, and 26% of parents have expressed concern about education-related costs for their children this year,” Trae Bodge, RetailMeNot’s consumer savings expert, told the Daily News .
But consumers “should be mindful of the changing retail landscape with the increased occurrence of Black Friday in July sales” from Target, Walmart and Amazon Prime that overlap “back-toschool-specific sales,” added Bodge.
“Consumers who shop opportunistically will find strong discounts on school necessities during this time.”