The Retailers' Guide to Back-to-School Shopping

Introduction

The back-to-school shopping season is one of the busiest — and most important — times of year for retailers.

While start dates vary based on where you are in the US, most students head back into classrooms between the months of August and September. That means that as soon as summer begins, it's time to start planning for the upcoming school year.

Consumers typically start shopping for back-to-school supplies in July, and the rush dies down around Labor Day weekend.

Feeling stressed? Don't be! We've got your back.

In this guide, we’ll cover the products shoppers are looking for, services your small business can offer, and the most effective back-to-school promotions and tactics.

Back-to-School Product Checklist

Your shoppers will keep a close eye on their back-to-school shopping list, but as a retailer, you need your own checklist of products to stock before the rush.

Keep in mind that back-to-school necessities may look different than they have in past years. During the pandemic, technology took on a larger role in the world of education, and while most students are now back in the classroom full-time, they're still using devices like laptops and tablets to learn.

With this in mind, we recommend stocking traditional school supplies like notebooks and backpacks alongside new must-haves like tablets, styluses, and keyboards.

To help you stock your shelves with everything your customers need, we've put together this list of back-to-school products. If it makes sense for your small business, try adding a few of these items to your inventory to see how well they sell.

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Make Back-to-School Shopping Convenient

Back-to-school season can feel hectic for you as a retailer — so just imagine how parents and students are feeling.

You’ve got ‘first day of high school’ customers, ‘freshman year of college’ customers, and customers who are doing their child's ‘first day of school ever’ shopping. Whether your shoppers are sending their children to the preschool classroom for the first time or moving them to a college campus miles away, it can be a hectic time.

That's why it's so important to offer convenient options that make back-to-school shopping a breeze. Let's take a look at three ways to accommodate overwhelmed shoppers.

Order Pickup

Retailers have gotten creative with order pickup options. Consumers have purchased things in ways they never have before, like placing an order on a phone call, shooting a text, or sending a direct message on social media.

No matter your preference, consider offering in-store or curbside pickup for overwhelmed folks who don’t prefer traditional shopping this time of year. Your customers may have a lot on their plate if it’s theirfirst time sending a kid off to school, or if their schedules can't accommodate an in-store back-to-school shopping session.

Online Shopping

During the back-to-school season and beyond, online shopping is huge. While e-commerce might seem like an intimidating leap for your small business, it can be a great way to boost your sales and keep customers happy.

Allowing your customers to shop for back-to-school supplies online means they can have products shipped directly to their homes, or stop by to pick up their orders. This way, your customers get exactly what they need, and you don’t need extra staff to keep up with an influx of customers in your storefront.

Expanded Business Hours

Another way to help your customers and boost your back-to-school sales is to expand your business hours.

Opening earlier in the morning or staying open later in the evening during the summer accommodates parents who work during the weekdays — making it easier for them to choose your small business for their child's classroom needs.

The Best Back-to-School Promotions

When it comes to back-to-school shopping, the competition is fierce. The big-box retailers are competing for your customers' business — which is why it's so important to spruce up your marketing strategies and launch enticing promotions.

Let's take a look at four promotions your shoppers won't be able to turn down.

Back-to-School Marketing Strategies

Whether you’re a pro at promoting your small business’ deals or it’s new to you, back-to-school season is a great opportunity to test out marketing strategies.

You’ve put all of the effort into adding school supplies to your inventory and creating enticing promotions. Now it’s time to get the word out! Here are some ways we recommend promoting your retail deals and increasing traffic to your store.

Social Media

Your social media profiles are an effective and free way to start promoting. As soon as you know what deals you’ll be running and when, it’s time to share!

Visuals are essential for social media posts — especially when the goal is to get followers to spend their money. Take enticing photos and videos of your in-store setup and individual products. If you’re comfortable being on camera, you can pre-record a video to post or go live on your favorite platform (which is a huge engagement boost).

Timing is important, too, so dive into your social analytics to find out what time of day your followers are most active. As far as frequency, social media timelines move extremely fast and algorithms aren’t always in favor of businesses. We recommend posting daily to make sure your back-to-school specials aren’t missed!

Most importantly, if you are present online and want to drive e-commerce efforts up, be sure to include your website URL in each post. This helps users see that visiting your website is the next step, as opposed to stopping in your storefront.

If you do have a social media budget, it never hurts to boost your back-to-school sale posts. Putting ad dollars behind social posts helps more users see and engage with your content (this varies by platform and the goals you choose). A budget isn’t necessary on social media, but it definitely helps results.

Text Messaging

If you collect customer phone numbers but you’ve never known what to do with them, now’s your time to shine.

Consumers are used to receiving several texts per day, so sending a short message won’t throw them for a loop. You can recycle the same copy and photos you use on social media, shortening them and making them text-friendly. Text message marketing is great now that we’re in the smartphone era. You can include your website URL in a text, too, giving consumers yet another easy way to visit your site.

The goal is to promote your specials, of course, but be careful with how you word your messages. Spam texts are also extremely common nowadays, so you don’t want your back-to-school promotions getting mistaken for scams.

If you have a small phone number list, there are marketing apps on the market that allow you to send texts for free. However, if you have a large contact list, this tactic will require a small budget.

Email

If a customer gave you their email address, they’re usually expecting to hear from you. Consumers don’t like getting email after email if they don’t contain relevant information — but coupons and special offers? That’s content they can get behind.

While texts are more bite-sized versions of your promotions, emails allow you to expand on your content a bit more. You don’t want to send a long email full of useless information, either, so make sure you have just enough to reel people in.

Include those enticing product and storefront photos you took, along with the details of your storewide sale or individual offers. Again, you can drive people to call you, stop in, or visit your website from an email, so think about what action you want users to take after they receive your message.

Emails add another element to think about, too: a subject line. Just like in text messages, you don’t want your subject line to look spammy. You want it to be fun and eye-catching, which makes it hard for consumers to resist opening the email. Now’s the time to think of back-to-school puns!

Like text messaging, you can find platforms that help you create small email campaigns for free, but you’ll likely have to pay for a send if you’re over a certain number of contacts.

Direct Mailers

Now’s the time to put your customers’ mailing addresses to good use! Surprisingly, printing and mailing does require a budget, of course — but initiating this tactic is not as costly as you’d think.

Start small with postcards if you’ve never mailed anything to your customers before. The postcards can be simple, highlighting your back-to-school sale and what you have to offer. You can even include coupons and/or a QR code that takes viewers to your website when they scan it.

If postcards aren’t your cup of tea, there are plenty of opportunities within your community. If you do some research, you’ll likely find a local mailer that goes out to neighborhoods in your business’ radius. Adding a coupon or ad promoting your sale on a mailer is typically more expensive, but it’s a great option if you don’t want to start from scratch.

Website

In addition to sharing your website URL within the previous tactics we’ve mentioned, you can also promote directly on your website. This might take a little bit of work on your end, but your site is valuable real estate for back-to-school promotions.

Many retailers will change their homepage content based on specials and sales. Given the timeline of back-to-school season, this is a great opportunity to test out website promotion as these deals are spread out over several weeks. Try updating your homepage banner or imagery to showcase the back-to-school season, and make sure your specials are front and center on your site.

Whether your goal is to get more foot traffic or online traffic, these promotional tactics are a surefire way to get the word out about your back-to-school deals!

Crush Your Back-to-School Sales Goals With POS Nation

When it comes to back-to-school season, or any other big retail event, preparation is key. We hope these tips and checklists will help you have a successful summer and finish the year strong!

Along with putting these marketing and inventory strategies into action, we recommend upgrading to a powerful, reliable POS system to help you make the most of the back-to-school rush.

POS Nation is an all-in-one POS solution designed for small businesses just like yours. With POS Nation's flexible promotions, built-in customer loyalty program, and marketing integrations, you can maximize sales during the back-to-school season and beyond.

Take POS Nation for a spin by scheduling your personalized demo today.