Recess Is Over
By: Alex Wharton
Back-to-School promotions can lead to big bucks if online marketers start early.
Back to school is a big deal for affiliates – it kicks off the part of the season between June and January where many earn the majority of their annual revenue. The overall "back to school" season refers not just to shopping for kids in grades K through 12, but other spending periods including "back to college," new fall wardrobe, family vacations and sending the kids off to camp. Many affiliates find it second only to the holiday season in terms of sales.
Traditionally, many people consider the back-to-school (BTS) shopping season as a week or two before school starts in August and September. But according to a July 2005 National Retail Federation (NRF) report, 16 percent of consumers start their back-to-school shopping at least two months before school begins and 45 percent begin shopping between three weeks and a month before school starts. With school start times creeping back to mid-August and even earlier in some states (such as Hawaii), it would benefit merchants and affiliates to start their back-to-school efforts as early as May or June.
Chris Henger, vice president of affiliate marketing for Performics, suggests, "Merchants should initiate programs in early June – that is when placements should be secured."
Irv's Luggage, which sells backpacks and bags for back to school, starts its season in June. Mary Beth Padian, senior director of Upromise, an affiliate that is partnered with over 430 online retailers, says "most of the merchants we work with start their BTS promotions during the first and second weeks of July." For example, OfficeMax starts its BTS season in July and Payless Shoes starts their efforts off-line and online in mid-July.
Overall Market
In August 2005, the retail researcher NPD Group predicted overall back-to-school spending would rise 1.4 percent over 2004. They estimated consumers were planning to spend $372 per child this year, up from $367 last year.
The NRF had a higher prediction. The August 2005 Back-to-School Consumer Intentions and Action Survey, conducted by Ohio-based market intelligence firm BIGresearch, found that families with school-aged children would spend an average of $443.77 on back-to-school items. It estimated that for K-12 students, back-to-school spending would see sales of $13.4 billion.
The NRF 2005 Back-to-College Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, also conducted by BIGresearch in August 2005, predicted that college students and their parents were planning to spend 33.8 percent more in 2005 than in 2004 – a whopping $34.4 billion on returning to campus this year.
The $47.8 billion combined predicted spending on back-to-school and back-tocollege merchandise falls behind the Christmas/winter holiday in terms of seasonal sales. Total consumer spending for the 2005 holiday season was $438.6 billion, according to the NRF.
 School Supplies
What items are included in back-toschool shopping? In August 2005, NPD Group predicted that the best-selling items would be apparel, school supplies and footwear. According to the chief industry analyst of NPD Group, Marshal Cohen, denim would top the list of mostpurchased apparel item.
For back-to-college merchandise, BIGresearch predicted that spending would rise in all tracked categories; they forecasted that parents and students will spend $11.9 billion on textbooks, $8.2 billion on electronics, $3.0 billion on school supplies, $5.7 billion on clothing and $2.0 billion on shoes.
Shopping Online
So how much of back-to-school shopping occurs online? The 2005 NRF survey found that 32 percent of back-to-school shoppers plan to shop online and that number is expected to grow. One of the main reasons, explains Phil Rist, vice president of strategy for BIGresearch, is that "many store-based retailers are expanding their online offerings … in many cases, creating broader selection online than they carry in their stores."
The 2005 "Back to School Shopping Survey" from AOL's InStore, conducted by Digital Marketing Services, reported higher online spending than the NRF. Parents anticipate spending nearly half of their back-to-school shopping budgets online; 53 percent say online shopping makes back-to-school purchasing easier. The survey also found that most shoppers (58 percent) prefer to research their purchases in advance, as opposed to making impulse buys (42 percent).
 Targeting Teens
With the projected growth of back-to-school shopping online, online merchants and affiliates should prepare accordingly. Given teens' growing number and purchasing power, it makes sense for merchants and affiliates to reach out to them online.
In fact, Web merchants, responding to a June 2005 survey sponsored by the online trade publication Internet Retailer, found that the third most frequently cited growth driver was the growing buying power of today's Web-savvy teens and young adults.
Jeffrey Grau, senior analyst for eMarketer and author of February 2006's "Retail E-Commerce: Future Trends" reports that, "Credit goes to a cadre of digitally literate young adults who are replacing older Internet shoppers in the e-commerce marketplace."
A 2005 report by Pew Internet & American Life Project detailing a survey conducted in 2004 found that 87 percent of American teens age 12 to 17 used the Internet, up from 73 percent in 2000, and found that 43 percent of teens who go online purchase items.
One opportunity to reach teen and young adult consumers is for marketers to take advantage of their inclination for using consumer electronics and entertainment devices and for visiting websites about gaming (see story page 74). According to a 2005 Forrester Research report, over 90 percent of consumers age 12 to 21 in the U.S. and Canada own a gaming device and 75 percent play online and off-line games on their PC – marketers could integrate ads about back to school into the games themselves.
In addition, marketers would be wise to advertise about back-to-school shopping on a variety of websites. Young consumers spend more hours per week on the Net than adults, and Forrester found that almost 80 percent of teens visit game sites, almost 50 percent visit movie sites, and over one-third visit music sites.
Social networking sites are another opportunity for merchants to reach teens and young adults. Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst for eMarketer, says, "Teens are the consummate word-of-mouth consumers; they discuss their likes and dislikes in blogs, text messages and posts on social networking sites. There are two caveats, however. The atmosphere is freewheeling and merchants may need to cede some control over their brand image. The other caveat is that teens feel no qualms about exposing a company if their motives seem suspect."
Of course, another core audience for back-to-school promotions is the parents of school-age children. Continued on Page 2...
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school, back-to-school, back to school, retail, shopping, season, summer,
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