Survey: Back-to-school shoppers headed to discount stores
Physical stores remain crucial to the back-to-school shopping experience.
More than half (54%) of shoppers expect to purchase most back-to-school items in physical stores and 46% say that browsing and shopping in-stores has most influence on what products they buy, according to ICSC’s 2024 Back-to-School Consumer Survey. Discount stores remain the most popular type of retailer for back-to-school shopping for seven-in-10 consumers.
In other findings, about one in three consumers (32%) say that the promotions they see in-store influence the back-to-school purchases they make and 14% mainly shop in-store because there are more promotions.
Additional insights from the ICSC survey are below.
•Shoppers are more optimistic about their back-to-school shopping this year — only 44% of consumers are concerned about the affordability of school supplies, a decrease of 11 percentage points compared to last year (55%).
•Consumers have less urgency when buying back-to-school items this year — fewer shoppers (48%) have started or completed their shopping this year compared to 60% last year.
•Nearly half (46%) of back-to-school spending is expected to happen in August, in line with previous years.
•Nearly half (45%) of adults in the U.S. will buy back-to-school items this year.
•Almost half (46%) of shoppers plan their back-to-school shopping around holidays, like July Fourth, retailer-driven sales events, like Amazon Prime Day, and sales tax holidays.
“Our data proves that the physical store continues to play a vital role in the shopping journey,” said Tom McGee, president & CEO, ICSC. “This year also shows an increase in consumer optimism about being able to afford the supplies they need, driven in part by their savviness in planning their shopping around promotions and deals.”
ICSC’s 2024 Back-to-School Consumer Survey was fielded online between July 12, 2024 and July 14, 2024, and polled a demographically representative U.S. sample of 1,011 consumers.
