Retailers face school test

The back-to-school shopping season arrived a few weeks early this year — but that doesn’t mean consumers have opened their pocketbooks any wider.

Back-to-school spending for the 55 million K-12 students enrolled this fall in schools nationwide is expected to drop more than 9 percent, to $13.4 billion, according to the National Retail Federation. That averages to $444 spent per family with school-age children. The industry group said fewer people are purchasing high-end electronics, although spending on clothes and supplies remains relatively the same.

Wal-Mart Stores hoped to catch early back-to-school shoppers by removing its seasonal summer display of pools and swim toys in mid-July in favor of an expanded selection of notebooks and calculators.

Customers seem to appreciate shopping months in advance for school supplies, said Linda, the back-to-school department manager at the Wal-Mart in north Spokane, who said store policy doesn’t allow her to give her full name.

She said she has seen a “staggering” increase in shoppers as the first days of school near.

“The prices nose-dived so people can get their essentials,” she said.

One of those shoppers, Sandy Hobbs, of Deer Park, said she usually chooses discount stores such as Wal-Mart for her daughter’s back-to-school supplies. She plans on spending about $40 this year, less than in previous years, because her daughter, Tara Hobbs, has a shorter supply list for the eighth grade. The big purchase this year: a scientific calculator.

“I look at it as fun,” Sandy Hobbs said of back-to-school shopping. “When I was a kid, it was fun. I try to make it just as fun and exciting.”

Nearly 80 percent of customers shop at discount stores for some of their back-to-school items, up slightly from 2004, according to a survey by the National Retail Foundation. The number of people shopping at department stories is down from last year at about 40 percent, and fewer than 30 percent of back-to-school shoppers stop at office supply stores.

Josh Clark, 11, was shopping with his grandmother Judi Snyder at the Spokane Valley Staples office supply store earlier this month. He clutched a pack of pens and eagerly helped Snyder pick out a three-hole punch.

“He likes to get the stuff to go back to school, but when it comes to actually going …” Snyder said with a shrug.

Snyder said the two meander around stores without a focused budget or list; they even found a fold-up yardstick after stopping on a whim at a yard sale earlier that day. She said Clark’s mother will take him out after school starts to get the bulk of the supplies for his sixth-grade class at Franklin Elementary on Spokane’s South Hill.

“We’re just kind of winging it,” she said. “Some teachers are very specific, so we wait.”

Randy Barcus, chief economist for Avista Utilities, said he expects higher gas prices to put extra pressure on budget-conscious shoppers, who might buy less-expensive items or cut back altogether. Because of this, he said he expects the season to be disappointing for retailers, causing an early start to price cutting and aggressive sales campaigns.

“Retailers track this stuff carefully, and they are very astute at pulling the trigger on price cuts to get customers to come to their store instead of some other store,” Barcus said in an e-mail. “It could be an all-out price war between them.”

Patrick and Diane Espeland, of Post Falls, hit stores in mid-August to buy school clothes for their four children. They did a three-day marathon through Coeur d’Alene and Spokane, stopping briefly at JC Penney in Coeur d’Alene to buy shoes for their two youngest boys. Diane Espeland, who bought school supplies a month ago, said they look for discounts but that their two older children, who are entering the eighth and 10th grades, prefer more expensive name-brand clothing from stores like Old Navy and Aeropostale.

Diane said she has a simple rule for dividing up purchases with her teenagers: “If I buy them, I pick them out; if you buy them, you pick them out.”

While back-to-school spending on younger students is projected to be down this year, back-to-college shopping is expected to jump 33 percent over last year, to more than $34 billion, the National Retail Federation said. College students will spend $12 billion on textbooks, $8.2 billion on electronics and $3.6 billion on residence hall and apartment furnishings.

Rachel Lynde, 20, is starting her junior year in Whitworth College’s nursing program and her parents drove up from their Boise home to help her shop for her first apartment.

“While they are here we’re getting the main big stuff,” Lynde said. “Then we’ll pick up some things as I realize I need them.”

Lynde led her parents around the Target store at Spokane’s Northpointe Shopping Center, filling two carts with plastic tubs and a fold-up chair. She said she was planning on stopping at several stores, including Costco Wholesale for food and Best Buy for some small computer items. Lynde and her four roommates divvied up lists of what they need; she’s looking for smaller items such as bookshelves, a desk and a hamper, but doesn’t expect them to last long.

“I’m just hoping it will stay together and last through college,” she said.

Margie Card, general manager at Pier 1 Imports at Northpointe Plaza, said the store has tailored its displays and discounts to college students. The store starts its back-to-school sale at the beginning of August, but it gets busier a few weeks later when students from Whitworth and Gonzaga start moving in, she said.

Other shoppers hit the season’s sales to stock up on supplies at good prices.

Susan Greninger and Angie Ramey of North Spokane stopped by the school supplies display at the North Side Wal-Mart in mid-August to buy plastic bins, pencil pouches, pens and pencils and other items they use for gifts and crafting. Together, they spend more than $400 on supplies they said would cost several times more during any other time of the year.

“You can afford to buy everything,” Greninger said. “I stock up big time.”

Greninger said she usually stops by sales at Shopko and Rosauers supermarkets as well.

“All of my craft friends do this,” she said. “We all hit the streets to stock up on back-to-school.”