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Back To School Season: Are You Prepared - Part 2

Earlier this week we began our back-to-school segment explaining how you can get prepared, who your key audience is, and why it pays to start early.

This week we are continuing these ideas, as well as presenting some of the key findings from Deloitte’s annual back-to-school survey which provided some excellent, very interesting findings. If you want to read the original survey let us know and we'll send you the details. Now we’ll just jump straight into it…

Key Findings From Deloitte

Deloitte released its 10th annual back-to-school survey results, and the key findings were very interesting. We highlighted a few points from it we believe you will find interesting:
 - 25% of consumers plan to use social media for transactional purposes, such as to find promotional codes and vouchers
 - 71% of total spending happens during an 8 week period from early July through to late August
 - 1/5 shoppers are ‘undecided’ about whether they will shop online or in-store and might be persuaded by targeted promotional efforts
 - 98% of US consumers plan to buy school supplies, with an average spend of $104. Similarly,  - 97% plan to buy clothing and accessories (average spend: $284), 23% for computers and hardware ($307), and 18% for electronic gadgets ($254).

Read more: part 1 of our back-to-school marketing guide.

Of the ‘undecided’ shoppers:
 - 68% plan to purchase from online retailers who offer free shipping
 - 65% plan to shop at different points throughout summer to take advantage of deals
 - 49% prefer loyalty programs that provide faster or cheaper shipping to discounts when shopping online

From this survey, it is clear that the undecided shopper market provides a big opportunity for retailers to sell their products through interesting offers and advertisements. Furthermore, it can be seen that retailers who begin their back-to-school marketing early and get those early sales are likely to receive a greater portion of the back-to-school sales as those who shop earlier tend to spend more money. 

How Are People Purchasing?

We already know that the rise of mobile phone use is continuing; in 2014 roughly 40% of back-to-school searches were made on a mobile phone - this figure increased to 50% in 2015 and has been increasing ever since. Even whilst people are shopping in person, they are using their mobiles to get price comparisons online. Ensure that your website is mobile friendly and up-to-date for the back-to-school season as mobile accounts for more and more back-to-school spend every year.

Browse our full range of promotional products for schools and contact us today for your bespoke pricing!

Written by

Total Merchandise | Editoral Team

Our editorial team is drawn from a pool of experienced promotional merchandise product team members, account managers, marketers and other contributors. With such a wide range of skills and experience, they write about many aspects of promotional merchandise, wider marketing and business matters, as well as company news updates.

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