Report: Grocers have lots of opportunity to grab back-to-school dollars

Fewer than one in 10 shoppers plans to buy school supplies at the grocery store this year, according to data released Monday by consumer research firm Numerator.

The bulk of those back-to-school dollars will instead go to mass retailers, with 80% of consumers saying that’s where they will buy the majority of their pens, pencils, folders and notebooks, Numerator found.

Twenty percent of those surveyed said they’ll outfit the family for school at the dollar store, followed by club/wholesale retailer (15%), grocery store (9%), drug store (8%), specialty retailer (5%), delivery service (2%) and convenience store (1%).

Most consumers said they plan to shop for school supplies in-store, with 17% saying they’ll be buying online for delivery.

Families with kids are potentially a market worth courting, though. Numerator found that 57% of shoppers said they will spend more than $100 on school supplies this year, with almost a third planning to spend more than $200. Those buying for older students tend to spend more than those shopping for younger kids.

Shoppers said they like to shop back-to-school sales (48%) to save money, followed by using coupons (35%), comparing prices (34%), reusing old supplies (33%) and buying in bulk (13%).

And convenience is key: More than a third (34%) of those surveyed said they plan to get all of their school shopping down in one trip or, at least, during the same day.

Most-popular items include pens and pencils (80%), paper and notebooks (80%), folders/binders (75%), backpack/lunchbox (62%), crayons/markers/colored pencils (58%) and disinfecting wipes (42%), the survey said.

School-supply shopping is not an occasion in which shoppers are seeking out store brands, Numerator said.

“A third of all shoppers consider name-brand traditional supplies important,” the report noted.

A back-to-school shopping report released last month by real estate services company Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) found that shoppers plan to spend 15.7% on back-to-school shopping this year, with 55.2% of consumers saying they intend to spend more than they did last year.