Back to School Retail: 2017 Trends & Tips

The back to school season always offers retailers an opportunity to increase sales and promote their product lines. In fact, the back-to-school season is the one of the most profitable shopping season of the year, second only to the holiday shopping season. So what are some trends your store should capitalize on and how can you increase sales during this back-to-school season? Read on to find out!

Some Back-to-School Retail Trends

Shoppers Spending More and Over a Longer Duration

Today's shoppers are spending more & more on back-to-school items. In fact, the National Retail Foundation (NRF) found that total back-to-school spending has grown over 55% during the past decade, and this year, back-to-school household spending looks to surpass a whopping $78 billion.

Customers are also shopping smarter. According to a USA Today article, back-to-school shopping sprees are a thing of the past. Families are actually spending more on back-to-school items for their children, but they're doing so over a longer period of time since they're constantly on the prowl for the best deals. 

What does this mean for you? This means repeat business and additional spending for your retail store if you know how to take advantage of shopper tendencies.

The Back-to-School Season is now Longer than Ever

With so many different schools conducting classes based on different semester types, along with record high percentages of family members attending school, the back-to-school shopping season is longer than it's ever been before. 

This means you have lots of time to tailor your marketing to important, yet diverse, audiences. Everyone from parents with young kids to college and university students will be searching for ways to save. 

Parent & Student Shopping Lists are Changing in 2017

According to a comprehensive Deloitte survey (conducted over the course of ten years), 55% of parent & student spending this year will account for clothing and school accessories (up from 45% in 2016). On the other hand, this same segment plans to spend less than last year on computers & electronics (only 14% of total back-to-school spending budgets). 

This means you should know what to stock up on and always make sure you have plenty of school accessories and clothing items (e.g. socks) available for your customers. 

Shoppers Still Demand In-Store Items Over Online Stores

According to the same Deloitte survey,  About 70% of shoppers this year plan to shop in-store and only 22% plan to shop online (the rest are undecided). This is about the same as last year. So although online retail is increasing as an overall trend, this hasn't really applied to brick-and-mortal retail stores for the back-to-school season.

Back-to-School Retail Tips to Increase Sales

Retail Tip #1: Know Your Audience

This involves some research and awareness. Know what your local schools are requiring students to bring. Here, you can ask friends & family for advice. You can also review past back-to-school reports from your POS to optimize your inventory accordingly. 

As this year's research shows, most shoppers are looking to spend on clothing and school accessories (about 60%), but the specifics will certainly differ from market to market. 

Retail Tip #2: Deliver the Basics

There are some basic school supplies you should always be offering. These include things like notebooks, calculators, pens, pencils, backpacks, socks, jeans, and more. 

To offer these items at a promotion will also help build foot traffic into your store. Work with your wholesale school products supplier to see what deals and brands they're offering to make sure you have a full line of basic school supplies, and to do so at an attractive rate and profit margin. 

Retail Tip #3: Assign a Back-to-School Space inside Your Store

For repeat customers and those that are shopping in your store, make sure it's as easy as possible for them to notice your store's Back-To-School section. This means you should have bold and exciting signage that distinguishes your BTS section in a positive way. 

Also make sure that your back-to-school products are organized accordingly, easy to notice, and labeled in the appropriate manner. Here, you can design your own planogram to optimize the display of your items, or talk to your primary school items supplier for potential ideas. 

Make sure to read our blog article on increasing retail sales for more comprehensive tips about signage and planograms. 

Retail Tip #4: Get Creative with Your Promotions

There are several ways to get creative and maximize sales volume. First off,  using ‘Mix & Match' promotions are a good way to satisfy shopper demand and increase sales. You can also bundle popular items with each other and offer discounts on premium products required by schools (e.g. graphing calculators). In addition, if you have a customer loyalty program, make sure you apply back-to-school incentives to it. 

When you decide on your promotions, always make sure that you communicate your promotions as effectively as possible, whether this is good signage & display, online advertising, social media, or a combination of these tactics. 

Retail Tip #5: Leverage Social Media

Using social media for business promotion sounds obvious but knowing how to optimize your social media channel is a skill that many lack. The important thing here is to focus on two particular segments, the younger generation (Gen Z), and parents older than 35. So try to divide your social media activities to 2 particular areas based on these segments. 

For the younger generation (30 and younger), you can use Instagram and Snapchat since these platforms are dominated by this particular demographic. Here, try to create fun posts that are both informative and entertaining. 

On the other hand, since over 73% of U.S.-based parents older than 35 on Facebook (yes, a huge percentage!), use that platform to tailor your message to them. Here, you can use the highly effective Facebook Ads Platform to refine your targeting to the exact location and people you want. You can also utilize appropriate Facebook business pages and join buy/sell groups in your local area to increase your store's exposure.

Conclusion 

This year's back-to-school season will offer great opportunity to increase sales & revenue for your retail store. Research trends for the 2^nd biggest shopping season of the year point to continued in-store traffic and smart shopping leaning on maximum savings, which bodes well for dollar/dollar plus stores, convenience stores, independent retail shops, and other retail sectors that focus on discount items. 

To maximize your sales revenue this back-to-school season, make sure you know your audience, are offering the basics, create a visually appealing BTS section, get creative with your promotions, and leverage social media to your full advantage. 

To make the most of this back-to-school season, keep well stocked and maximize your profit margin by exploring our new line of eye-catching dollar school supplies for your store!

International Wholesale

DOLLAR STORE BUSINESSES: INDUSTRY PROGRESS & TIPS FOR GROWTH TIPS

The dollar store business sector is set to grow significantly in the next couple years. Consumers are spending more & more of their money at dollar stores, and less & less of their money at larger supermarkets. This puts you, the dollar store business owner, in a unique position to take advantage of retail industry opportunities.

But what can you do to help your dollar store business grow, and how can you work with AND against your competition to take advantage of such opportunities? This article helps answers these questions and more.

Where is the US Dollar Store Business in 2017? 

The dollar store business sector has been among the fastest growing retail subsectors for the past several years. According to the retail research firm Conlumino, total dollar store sales have shot up from about $30 billion in 2010 to over $45 billion in 2015, a whopping 50% growth rate. This growth has far exceeded the little-over 15% rise in total retail sales revenue for the same period.

Although the dollar store business sector is highly concentrated, with the two top players Dollar Tree and Dollar General accounting for about 75% of market share, the competition is rising and the opportunity for market entry is increasing since more and more independent dollar stores and dollar store suppliers are gaining access to economies of scale provided by Chinese and other Asian manufacturers.

Expectations for the Dollar Store Industry in 2017 

Based on recent research conducted by Moody's, the retail sector in 2017 has a stable outlook, with an expected increase of about 3%-4%.

At the same time, they also report that the dollar store industry will be among the “top performers in 2017, as cash-strapped consumers look to save money on multiple fronts.” They report that dollar store performance is likely to be among the best with operating income hitting near 6% growth.

What This Means For You – Dollar Store and Convenience Store Owners 

All this data and research means you must be prepared to take advantage of opportunities that are knocking on your door. Consumers are looking to save as much as possible and, according to Moody's and Conlumino, people are fragmenting their spending, going less to large supermarkets & retail stores and going more to convenience & dollar stores.

To help you make the most of these trends and take advantage of upcoming opportunities, we've gathered some general strategic and tactical tips to help grow your dollar store business.

Dollar Store Business Tip #1: Conduct Frequent Audits for What's Selling and What's Not 

Analyzing which merchandise is selling is absolutely essential to grow your business. Dollar store businesses don't have much wiggle room when it comes to profit margins so conducting retail sales audits is important to see what's selling and at what price points.

Here, data is vital. Having a good point-of-sales software and using that data to make strategic business decisions is becoming increasingly important in a data-driven world. By conducting audits of your stores, you make see opportunities to increase stocks of certain items, modify pricing points, and communicate with your supplier on hot-selling merchandise.

Dollar Store Business Top #2: Focus on Diversifying Your Offering with More Private Label Merchandise 

There have been lots of research in recent years pointing out that consumer mindset is moving away from lifestyle-driven brand names and moving towards practically-driven private labels. So more dollar store businesses are giving into this consumer trend and providing more and more private label merchandise offered by their dollar store suppliers.

Although carrying brand names are an important part of your dollar store business product offering, the primary motivating factor for consumers visiting your store is to maximize savings. Try to expand your offering by providing brand names and supplier private label items, especially if they're packaged right, offer good quality, and give a better pricing point.

Dollar Store Business Tip #3: Minimize Unnecessary Labor 

Dollar store retail operations are famous for tight profit margins so you know how taking every single expense into account is crucial for survival. To help minimize labor costs, always look to assess if certain labor tasks can be combined or even eliminated. And always look for opportunities to automate certain tasks such as ‘self-serve' checkout kiosks, efficient inventory systems, effective POS software and more.

In addition, it's always a good idea to conduct employee performance evaluations to make sure you're getting the desired amount of work from your employees. You can do this by keeping track of completed tasks and projects during your dollar store business hours.

Dollar Store Business Tip #4: Working With and Against Your Competition 

It's always a good idea to avoid burning relationship bridges with your competitors since you can frequently find opportunities to work with them for the benefit of both parties. For example, you can think about teaming up with a competitor to purchase merchandise in bulk from a dollar store supplier.

On the other hand, you should be persistent in keeping up - and staying ahead of - your competition by tracking their promotional offerings. One way you should do this is by recording each of your competitors' promotions in a measurable way. When it comes to your competition, you should always follow the adage, “Knowledge is power.”

Conclusion 

Based on industry research in the retail sector, dollar store businesses are well placed to grow for the next several years. This puts you, the dollar store business owner, in a good position to grow since consumers are moving away from cultural ‘lifestyle' decisions and moving towards spending in a more practical and financially driven manner.

So make sure you're identifying and expanding your best-selling merchandise, make sure you're implementing cost-effective measures to increase your store's efficiency, and make sure you work with and against your competition for better opportunities.

Don't forget to read our blog article on How to Increase Retail Sales: Marketing & Sales Tips to get some great insight into how to effectively market your retail and dollar store business. 

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