Depending on which region of the United States that you live in, the start of the new school year is either right around the corner or has already begun. While the exact dates vary by state, and in some cases, school district, back-to-school shopping season is officially here.
Back-to-school shopping means savings for consumers and sales for retailers.
What does that mean for online retailers? The back-to-school shopping season isn’t just for children and college students. Lower prices on items like apparel, electronics, and dorm room home décor items (shower curtains, bedspreads, etc) appeal to a wide variety of demographics.
While this is significant in and of itself, there’s another reason why back-to-school shopping season is something that all retailers should take note of, even if they don’t sell anything that could be even remotely connected to a school shopping related promotion.
In just a few short months, the holiday shopping season will be upon us. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are the times when people shop more and retailers have a significant opportunity to boost their profits before the New Year.
The holiday shopping season is also a time for bargains and sales, and is the most significant sales period of the year for many retailers.
- According to Digital Commerce 360, no less than 33 million consumers shop with a mobile phone and more than half of parents with school-age children are planning to buy some, if not all of their school supplies online.
- Among high school and college aged students, Internet Retailer also reports that 17% have used their smartphones to scan QR codes. These QR codes, which can link back to mobile sites, ecommerce sites, product videos, and more, often contain valuable coupons and special offers.
- As a recent Computerworld article, “Rise of the Planet of the Tablets” points out, tablet usage is also rapidly growing, and many people are using their tablets to shop online, both on ecommerce sites and mobile-enabled sites.
Online shopping has become the norm, and mobile and tablet shopping are quickly becoming just as common.
When you consider how common shopping online has become, and how common shopping via a mobile phone or tablet device is quickly becoming; it isn’t hard to imagine these same people turning to ecommerce and mobile commerce sites for their Halloween and Thanksgiving supplies, and holiday shopping needs in a few months.
What types of strategies and promotions are you implementing for the upcoming back-to-school and holiday shopping seasons?
