❗Let's close the gap: We still need your help to raise $40,000 by April 1. Donate now

Inflation piles on back-to-school shopping season

Kristin Schwab Sep 6, 2022
Heard on:
HTML EMBED:
COPY
Backpacks and notebooks are expected to be the hotter back-to-school items than tech tools this shopping season. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Inflation piles on back-to-school shopping season

Kristin Schwab Sep 6, 2022
Heard on:
Backpacks and notebooks are expected to be the hotter back-to-school items than tech tools this shopping season. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
HTML EMBED:
COPY

It’s a new school year and after a summer of higher grocery and electricity bills and pretty much everything else, inflation hit back-to-school items like backpacks and notebooks.

How much families spent this year on back-to-school shopping depends on what families you’re talking to. Two thirds of shoppers planned to pull back on buying, while the rest planned to spend significantly more. That’s according to a survey from JLL where Geno Coradini leads retail.

“A lot of that is being driven through increased inflation,” he said.

When averaged out, families planned to spend about $340 a child – that’s $17 more than last year. Stephen Rogers at Deloitte said that’s because people prioritize spending on education.

“Parents are gonna make it happen, right? Parents want to set their kids up for success,” he said.

One category where families aren’t spending as much? Computers, tablets and other tech tools – because there was so much investment in those types of products when schools went remote at the beginning of the pandemic.

“Basically COVID brought a lot more technology into the classroom, more technology into the home,” Rogers said, adding that retailers use the back-to-school season to forecast the next big spending surge: the holidays. And so far, he said, we’re about as back to normal as we’ve ever been.

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. 

Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.