As the hot July days fade, hundreds of thousands of city families start thinking about back-to-school arithmetic.
But retailers are already in full swing with discounting and promotional campaigns as peak shopping traffic begins tomorrow, according to Experian Marketing Services.
The National Retail Federation estimates that families, on average, will spend $635 on apparel, shoes and supplies for their children this school year. That’s a 7.8 percent drop from the $689 spent last year.
Back-to-school is the second-largest shopping season by revenue, after holiday shopping.
Overall, the school shopping season is now stretching from early July through September and is expected to reap $72.5 billion this year — almost half of that for college-bound students, according to the NRF.
According to retail analysts, back-to-school spending can be a reliable indicator of how end-of-year holiday spending will fare, with a 90 percent correlation over the last 30 years.
Many retail analysts point to improving consumer confidence numbers as a hopeful harbinger of back-to-school shopping season benefiting from the rising tide.
A new Capital One report finds that price is the key issue for most shoppers during this back-to-school season.
The giant credit-card issuer says, “Many parents and teens don’t always see eye-to-eye when it comes to back-to-school shopping plans, and less than half of teens say they have worked with parents to develop a budget for spending and saving.”
And this debate about how to spend money also extends to where one spends it.
For instance, “40 percent of parents said they plan to do the majority of their shopping at discount retailers, while 29 percent expect to shop in department stores,” according to the survey. “For teens, those numbers flip, with 47 percent of teens expecting to do most of their shopping at department stores and 29 percent expecting to do the majority of their shopping at discount retailers.”
A financial adviser in Queens says that clothing purchases should be considered an opportunity to educate teenagers about the value of money and how to use budgets.
“Give them a cash allotment for clothes and emphasize they won’t get more than that,” says Raymond Mignone, a financial adviser in Little Neck.
He adds that credit cards should not be used for these purchases.
“With cash, I think you’ll find a lot of teenagers looking for value and trying to get the best quality for the lowest prices,” Mignone explains.