Back to School Shopping – Doing It the Easy Way This Year

It’s time for that rite of passage known as Back to School. While many parents look forward to the sound of the school bell as much as their kids dread it, there is another side to this season – back to school shopping. Armed with supply lists printed from school websites, parents have to schlep into stores pushing big shopping carts and prepare for battle.

This was the scenario that we participated in every year since our oldest started school 15 years ago. Like all the other people, we jostled in the crowds trying to get the marble notebooks, pencils, index cards, and glue sticks. Each subject required a folder with two pockets, and we couldn’t forget the ream of copier paper, the markers, and pencil case with sharpener.

In recent years this list has expanded to include – hand sanitizer, facial tissues, and paper towels. When all this is actually found and placed in the cart, it is usually overflowing. Then to add insult to injury and rub salt in the wounds, we would wait on insufferably long lines to check out.

This year with one child going off to college, we decided to say “Enough is enough!” Despite wanting to give our local stores the business – and this is something that we usually do – this year our shopping list included materials for a dorm room. That made us turn around and make the big decision to shop online. While this experience was going to still be expensive, at least we could shop in our pajamas in a comfortable chair with a cup of java.

This back to school shopping is extremely profitable for retailers. According to the National Retail Federation, families with children in elementary school and high school will spend an average of $696.70 – up $12 from last year. Parents like us who have a college student, will spend a whopping $976.78 – up $24 from last year. 

Judging from our online shopping bills, this is just about what we spent, but we may have gotten a little carried away with certain dorm items that pushed us over the average cost listed.

After the final click on screen, we just had to sit back with our ankles crossed and watch Stranger Things episodes. With free shipping thrown in, this is the ultimate no-brainer. When the packages arrived – in huge boxes – it seemed worth foregoing the dubious pleasure of pushing shopping carts around a crowded store.

Back to School sales now are now rivaling Christmas sales. Amazon announced that this year’s Prime Day – July 15 – was its biggest sales day ever, and much of this success was due to back to school shopping. Overall approximately $80.7 billion will be spent on back to school shopping this year. 

The other day I went to a local store to get copier paper, and the line of people waiting to check out wound up and down the aisles. I looked at their carts brimming with back to school items, smiled, and went back outside. No more of that for me.

So, if you’re a parent and you haven’t gone shopping for back to school yet, there are a few days left. My advice – skip the line and shop online. The stuff will probably come in a day or two, and you will have saved yourself a whole lot of stress and, more importantly, time.