STACY G

BACK TO SCHOOL IN AMERICA BY THE NUMBERS (SPOILER ALERT: THE AVERAGE FAMILY BUYS 15 PIECES OF CLOTHING)

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My kiddos are little, age 3 and age 1. They’re not clamoring yet for the “It” brand jeans or leggings or hoodies. But they’re still growing, and at a pace that far eclipses older kids and tweens. So I still dig into Back to School (BTS) trends and sales, to see what deals I can haunt up.

I was curious to find out how much Americans are spending this year for Back-to-School 2021.

HOW MUCH FAMILIES ARE SPENDING THIS YEAR FOR BACK TO SCHOOL SHOPPING

  • $697 per household
    • $376 for apparel and clothing (with average household buying 15 items)
    • $203 on computers, calculators, tablets, and other electronics
    • $117 on backpacks, notebooks, and other school supplies

Check out this infographic to dig deeper.

Originally published on swagbucks.com.

2021 BACK TO SCHOOL TRENDS

Back to School shopping numbers don’t capture the dollars spent on extra gas for school drop-offs and pick-ups, lunchbox love notes, apple juice boxes, or snack bags of gold fish and teddy grahams. (Or the costs of crumb removal and auto detailing.)

But with the back-to-school figures that retailer analysts do publish, I’ve made some interesting observations on back to school spending in 2021.

Jeans are cheaper these days. I found it interesting that the price of an average pair of jeans now, $18, is less than what I paid in high school. I paid around $25 to $50 per pair. Old Navy jeans were a bargain at $17, yet I found a rack of them for $5.97 at my local Old Navy store just the other week. I’m not a retail analyst or an economist, but it looks like the price of denim is going down.

15 items per household, (or 7 to 8 items per kid), seems low. With the proliferation of Shein and other fast fashion brands, and armies of clothes-hoarding moms on BST groups, the figure of roughly 7.5 per kid seems low. I would guess 12-16 per kid. How many items are you buying for your kids?

Around 15% of shoppers shop with a purpose. They say that they care about supporting minority owned businesses and the politics of retailers that they shop.

75% of US households will do Back to School shopping in actual physical stores. Most households are doing a hybrid (some in store, some online), but Americans will be hitting up malls and shopping centers. This figure didn’t surprise me. A few years ago, it might have. But we all have a touch of shelter (in place) fever. Garbed in a face mask, I myself have set foot in a number of retailers over the past several months. (Even double vaxxed and wearing a mask, I’m cautious.) There, I’ve actually tried on, and purchased, clothing in a physical store location – for the first time in at least 2 or 3 years.

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