WJR Business Beat: Back-to-School Spending Projections (Episode 454)

Good morning, Paul! It’s back-to-school shopping season, and this year’s projected spend per family is set around $1,104, according to a survey conducted and just released by RetailMeNot. What are we buying? Eighty-two percent will purchase clothes; 80%, shoes; 72%, backpacks, and 37% will be buying electronics for their kids as they head back to school.

Now this year, of course, parents will be looking for deals and promotions given inflation to aid in their ability to spend. And here are the top sources for consumers to find those deals. In store while browsing, 52% of consumers will find deals while in store; 38% of parents will be relying on search engines to find those deals; 37%, a retailer’s website or app. and 32% on social media. Now while 61% of parents plan to shop in store this year, the big box retailers will get the lion’s share of the action. The biggest projected winners this year, not surprising Walmart, Amazon and Target.

Now, if you’re a small business owner targeting parents this back-to-school season, and trying to compete with these big box retailers and e-commerce sites, make sure you feature deals in your outbound email newsletter. Don’t wait for customers to find you or to find a dealer promotion to drive them to your store, be proactive, go get ’em.

One suggestion, offer up a hot loss leader in your email newsletter to them in which you’re willing to sacrifice margin or perhaps even profit altogether in order to drive traffic in store or to your e-commerce site, and then upsell and cross sell in order to drive margin and profits.

I’m Jeff Sloan, founder and CEO of startupnation.com, and that’s today’s Business Beat on the Great Voice of the Great Lakes, WJR.