Update on Back-to-School Spending
The recent National Retail Federation’s 2012 Back-to-School spending survey, conducted by BIGinsight, predicts that people will begin their shopping earlier this year than last year. Hoping to spread out their shopping over a greater period of time (and perhaps over a few more paychecks!) almost half of shoppers will start shopping three weeks to a month in advance of the opening of school.
With the slowed economy still an issue, the Internet is expected to play an even greater role in the way parents shop for their children’s school needs this year. More people will be shopping for sales more often (51.1%) and cut back on spending for their children’s extracurricular activities (11.0% compared to 10.2% last year.)
Most popular destinations for shopping for school items will be discount stores (67.1%), clothing stores (52.0%), office supply stores (42.0%), drug stores (22.7%) and thrift stores (14.4%). A nice increase in traffic will occur for electronics stores for such items as smartphones, tablets and MP3 players (26.3% compared to 21.7% last year). More catalog sales (24.9%) are expected to be used by college-bound students.
College-bound students will also be armed with gift cards, with 37.9% expected to spend an average of $71.23 from either gift cards or prepaid cards, the most reported since the category first appeared in the survey.
So are you set up with the right software that delivers the functions that you need to compete for your share of back-to-school profits? Now is the time to check out the CounterPoint POS features that will allow you to track your inventory precisely, do layaways, provide gift cards, promote your sales items, and sell remotely. Ask about CPMobile and CustomerConnect to make sure that you are up-to-date on the best that POS has to offer.
We’re available at 800-672-4803 to answer your question, or email us more information.