ROGERS - Jody Agnacian’s 10-year-old son, Charlie, and 12-year-old daughter, Lily, were ready to shop for fall school supplies as soon as the lockers slammed shut for the last time in June.
It’s barely past the halfway mark of summer vacation for Arkansas schoolchildren, and most retailers have their back to-school displays up and shelves fully loaded, enticing families such as the Agnacians of Bentonville to get an early start. Nearly one-quarter of families with school-age children have begun school supply shopping this summer, the highest percentage in the 11 years National Retail Federation has been tracking the statistic.
Though parents are starting their school shopping earlier, they won’t be spending at the record levels they paid out for school supplies in 2012, according to the federation’s recently released 2013 Back to-School Survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics. Families with school-age children will spend an average $634.78 on apparel, shoes, supplies and electronics, an 8 percent drop from the $688.62 spent last year, the study said.Some 5,635 consumers were polled July 1-8.
Total back-to-school spending could be as much as $26.7 billion, said Prosper. Combined with back-to-college sales, the figure could reach $72.5 billion. The back to-school/college shopping season is retailers’ second biggest moneymaker next to the holiday season.
Prosper’s 2013 study said last year’s blockbuster back to-school retail sales left parents with supplies their children can keep in this year’s rotation.
“Having splurged on their growing children’s needs last year, parents will ask their kids to reuse what they can for [this] school season,” federation President and Chief Executive Matthew Shay said in a release Thursday.
For Lily Agnacian, that means she’ll reinstall her fashionable locker decor, including wallpaper, motion sensitive chandelier, carpet, shelving and organizer pockets. The same items are prominently displayed at the Wal-Mart Supercenter on Pleasant Crossing Boulevard in Rogers.
Jody Agnacian said she started school-supply shopping at Wal-Mart and would search elsewhere for what she couldn’t find there.
“We try and come to Wal-Mart first because I know everything’s maybe a little bit cheaper here,” she said.
She estimated spending $50-$60 per child for supplies, which is below the $90 per child estimated for 2013 by the Prosper study. The biggest portion of back-to-school shoppers’ budgets - 95.3 percent - will go toward new clothes and accessories. Families with school-age children will spend an average of $230.85 on apparel and $114.39 on shoes.
Many in Arkansas will wait to shop the weekend of Aug. 3-4 when they can get clothes and supplies for school without paying sales tax.
“Those extra savings could mean enough money to buy an extra shirt or backpack,” said Wal-Mart spokesman Molly Philhours. Other states offer the same or similar tax-free purchase programs on back to-school items, she said.
Duncan Mac Naughton, executive vice president and chief merchandising and marketing officer for Wal-Mart U.S. said the company will sell 42 million boxes of crayons this school season.
Business, Pages 27 on 07/20/2013