The Return To School Consumption Season Has Begun. Can The US Consumer Market Get Back From This?

For the United States

And retailers, back to school season.

It is definitely worth looking forward to.

Even under the premise of the uncertain economic recovery in the US, retailers will look forward to buying long shopping lists and planning to purchase.

American parents, such as shoes and other necessities for the new school year, came one after another.

At the end of June and the beginning of July each year, American retailers will happily welcome the return to school consumption season. This is a "shopping day" that is second only to Christmas and new year's day in the eyes of Westerners.

This year, when the US economy is described as "elephants trapped in the house", the employment rate and consumer confidence index do not seem to be able to comprehensively and intuitively reflect the tone of the consumer market.

As a result, the public's attention is once again focused on the back to school consumption season.

Can the US consumer market fade away for a while? What new strategies will the US businessmen use to arouse their enthusiasm for consumption? Perhaps we can get a clue from the new season's return to school consumption.

Online shopping advantage wins

For American brands and retailers, the return to the school season is definitely worth looking forward to.

During the period from the end of June to the middle of August, all students in the United States, including college students, can create nearly 69 billion dollars in consumption.

And retailers' expectations not only come from the huge market capacity, but when the second major consumption season comes next to winter holidays, consumers will have a sense of "must go shopping".

Therefore, even under the specific premise of the uncertain economic recovery in the US, retailers will keep their eyes open and eagerly look forward to those American parents who have long shopping lists and plan to purchase clothes, shoes and other new year's necessities.

According to the National Retail Association (NRF), in the same period of 2011, US students spent $603 per capita on various expenses such as buying clothes, shoes and electronic equipment.

Over the past year, the European debt crisis has spread, consumer spending has declined, and unemployment has continued to rise. A series of unfavorable factors have been stacked up to seize the throat of US economic growth.

This can not help but make people wonder whether such a low market Prelude will drag on the return to school consumption climax of this season. In the past June, NRF and BIGsight launched a new quarterly consumer survey.

The report shows that 80.4% of school-age children and their parents believe that the current economic situation will affect their spending plans. Fortunately, this situation is less than 86.1% of the last return to school consumption season. 79.8% of college students and their families believe that the economic downturn will cause them to reduce their expenditure. This proportion has not changed significantly compared with last year.

Despite the above figures, consumers do not plan to slash spending in this return to school consumption season, but NRF's other findings show that the current economic situation is indeed affecting the way consumers and shopping habits of American consumers.

The report points out that online shopping will play an important role in this season as online shopping provides consumers with the opportunity to save money and enjoy convenience.

31% of the students said they would compare the price of the physical store with the price of the shop, which accounted for an increase compared with 29.8% in the previous year.

Nearly 17% of students said they would choose to spend more online, a slight increase compared with 15.3% last year.

And specifically to the activities closely related to students, it is not difficult to find the negative impact of economic downturn on their lives.

14.3% of students said they would reduce extracurricular activities because of economic problems, which is higher than 10.2% last year.

One detail shows that today's American college students are more used to using secondhand books, and 2/5 college students say they are willing to share or borrow workbooks rather than buy new ones.

The survey also found that online shopping behavior among college students and their families is becoming more and more common, and they are more willing to use coupons.

Children's opinions dominate.

Online shopping has become increasingly entrenched in the hearts of American teenagers, because children are often the fastest growing group to accept new things in family consumption.

BCG (Boston consulting company) recent research shows that the curiosity of new things determines that teenagers are the "soul people" who bring new products or new consumption patterns into families.

The increase in the voice of young consumers has not only changed the family's consumption pattern, but more and more retailers have realized that children play an important role in the choice of brand during the return to school shopping season.

According to BCG's research report, 55% of respondents said that children's opinions were very important when choosing clothing and footwear products. Some older children even chose brands for their parents.

Another interesting phenomenon is that when the purse is tight, children are often the drivers of adult consumption. Those products purchased under the banner of children are also used by adults at home.

Compared with its parents, today's American young consumers obviously have stronger independence and awareness. A very important reason is the influence of television and the Internet.

20 years ago, television programs were limited by time and varied in types.

Now, children can sit at home and watch TV programs in all 500 channels with different languages.

A visiting parent said, "when we were children, we didn't even know their 1/10."

Mass video advertising

Consumers have changed their shopping habits in return to school, which also requires more retailers eager to increase sales during this period: not only to understand the preferences and needs of young consumers, but also to change publicity strategies according to the bias of shopping patterns.

In order to seize the business opportunities of online shopping in the return to school consumption season, businesses not only launched online shops, but also used some advertising budgets to invest in online video advertising.

Online video advertising has become an important channel for retailers and brands to display images to consumers at an extremely fast rate.

Some retailers also choose to implant video ads on major web sites during the return season.

They hope to magnify the advertising effect with lower input.

Businesses foresee that in this return season, consumers will also shop in physical stores, but they will always consider the cost budget.

Therefore, retailers choose the price of products as the focus of publicity, in order to let consumers know that in this special period, businesses are also thinking about the budget of consumers.

For example, many advertisements in J.C.Penney include information about "intelligent search for discount", which is to remind consumers to spend less money on more valuable goods.

Retailers and brands also realize that the protagonists of the return to school consumption season are not just parents, but also teenagers.

J.C.Penney has designed a simulation application for mobile devices, enabling teenagers to mix and match clothes freely in their mobile applications, and help them preview and mix up before buying products.

Other businesses give full play to celebrities in advertisements, which really attract young consumers.

Businessmen believe that only by allowing consumers to participate in marketing activities, so that the information will be pmitted to their minds, so as to achieve the effect of promoting the flow of customers in the store.