What do Americans buy first during the back-to-school season? New research is out

As millions of children and teenagers across the United States have returned to school, back-to-school shopping is in full swing. Back-to-school sales usually last for weeks or even months, and consumers buy different products or choose different channels at each stage. It is very important for merchants to understand consumer dynamics.

Recently, the research firm Grips analyzed the daily revenue indicators of several top e-commerce retailers in the United States to better understand the purchasing trends of American consumers during the back-to-school season. The study found that back-to-school shopping trends vary by category and in some cases even by retailer.

Back-to-school season purchase trends, four major categories are prioritized

The study found that sports brands such as Nike, FootLocker, Van's, Adidas and Zappos saw a surge in e-commerce sales of shoes in late July and early August. Since then, sales on these brand websites have been declining almost every week, indicating that shoes are the top back-to-school items for American consumers.

Casper, a mattress company, saw a slow but steady increase in sales starting in mid-July, while Mattress Firm also saw an increase in sales during the same period, but sales began to decline slightly in mid-August, indicating that mattresses are also one of the top back-to-school items that consumers are buying.

From late July to mid-August, the study found that office supply stores Office Depot and Staples saw steady and consistent sales growth, just before the start of school, suggesting that folders, pens, notebooks and other supplies requested by teachers may be purchased around this time.

Since the beginning of August, sales of backpacks and jackets of outdoor brand The North Face have been growing at a double-digit rate every week. However, sales did not fluctuate throughout July, and only increased by 4% month-on-month at the end of the month. This shows that promotional activities for such products are suitable to be launched before August 1.

Performance of various channels during the back-to-school season: overall impact is not obvious

The study analyzed the sales performance of three major e-commerce sales channels during the back-to-school season: department stores, large retailers, and warehouse club stores. Overall, the back-to-school season has little impact on the e-commerce sales of these retailers.

The study found that department store sales performance was mixed. For example, JCPenney's sales rose significantly only in the first week of August, and Kohl's held a summer promotion in July, which saw a surge in sales. However, sales began to decline week by week in late July and early August.

There was no significant back-to-school sales at Macys.com either, with sales declining in the second week of August despite a slight increase in late July/early August. Notably, Nordstrom has seen weekly sales declines for the past three weeks.

Big retailers like Walmart and Target have back-to-school sections in their stores, but there is no sign that back-to-school is boosting their sales. From late July to mid-August, online sales at both sites, as well as Amazon, did not fluctuate much. Best Buy also did not see any significant growth, but sales were slowly increasing by 1% to 3% per week.

Warehouse clubs saw a slight increase in sales during the back-to-school season, mainly due to two major categories: electronics and lunch boxes, where Samsclub.com and Costco were the leaders.

The study found that sales at Samsclub.com increased 13% in the last week of July from the previous week, but then fell by a similar amount the following week. Costco sales increased 2% in late July and then 6% in early August.

However, in the second week of August, Costco sales fell, while Sam's sales were flat in the same week, suggesting that the back-to-school season was short-lived in driving sales growth in both categories, at least in e-commerce sales.

Editor✎ Ashley/

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