The 2012 Back-to-School Checkout focuses on shopping behaviors during
the annual back-to-school shopping season. As the third annual Back-to-School
issue, we took a look back over the last few years to find where behaviors are changing or remaing consistent. One identified trend is the increasing importance of quality products and store experience for shoppers across all channels. While price is still the number one driver, it has become the cost of entry for retailers, meaning they need to find new ways to differentiate themselves beyond "low prices".
In addition, this issue analyzes differences across cultural groups during back-to-school shopping, such as the Hispanic populations’ tendency to view back-to-school shopping as a family activity. For example, 10 percent of Hispanics noted that aunts and uncles would be included in the back-to-school shopping experience compared to 4 percent of the general population.
As back-to-school shopping is primarily about products for the family and there is a growing importance of experience during this time, how can we make back-to-school shopping not only more family friendly, but also more about family fun?
These and many other areas of back-to-school shopping are explored in this issue of The Checkout, which can be downloaded here.
