Parents boost back-to-school budgets despite inflation concerns

In only a few weeks, kids will be donning their backpacks and lunchboxes and starting a new school year. And that means, by now, back-to-school shopping is well underway. While every year yields similar patterns in how parents shop, this year has its own unique trends. For instance, our recent Back-to-School Shopping Survey report found that many parents were concerned about the availability of back-to-school products and wanted to get a head start on crossing off their lists. As a result, almost half of survey respondents planned to start shopping before June.

I, too, planned to get my shopping done early but I discovered even as early as May, it was difficult to get all the items on the school list at one retailer. I ended up waiting to shop after all and I wonder how many parents did the same. Here are some other interesting insights from our report.

While admitting that inflation will impact their Back-to-School shopping strategies, parents still plan to bump up their back-to-school budgets this year. This is consistent with previous back-to-school surveys, where parents typically boost their budgets to account for changing needs and higher prices. What’s more, parents in every major income bracket plan to spend more than they did last year, with wealthier households (those earning over $150,000) upping their budgets the most, by 27%.

Although high-income parents plan to up their average spending to more than $600 per child this year, many plan to cut back on discretionary purchases. The share of high-income shoppers’ spending on discretionary items fell from 70.9% last year to 63.8%.

Cross-channel shopping remains prominent with parents, with nearly one-third of parents shopping via three or more channels. While delivery remains popular, fewer parents are using it this year compared to previous ones. Conversely, the popularity of malls and open-air centers has grown. Buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS) and curbside pickup decreased in popularity from last year.  Malls continue to be significantly more popular with high-income shoppers. More than 90% of parents shopping for Back to School will interact with stores in some way. Only 9.2% will exclusively shop online.

Mass merchandisers like Walmart and Target increased their popularity by almost 10 percentage points this year as parents do all they can to stretch their dollars. Parents who plan to shop at mass merchandisers tend to prioritize saving money and having a one-stop shop experience. In fact, 11.3% of parents will shop at mass merchandisers exclusively – considerably more than any other store type. Not only did Walmart, Amazon and Target keep their relative top three spots, but more parents plan to shop at these mass merchandisers than last year. The portion of parents listing Walmart as one of their top 3 destinations jumped eight percentage points from 2024; Amazon’s popularity zoomed up 11 percentage points, and Target’s rose 10 percentage points.

Parents with elementary school kids are relatively more likely to shop at mass merchandisers than other grade levels. Parents of middle-schoolers were more likely to shop online. High school parents were more likely to shop at sporting goods stores and apparel stores. Parents with college kids were more likely to shop at office supplies retailers, department stores and electronics stores.