UK parents to spend almost £500 million in school uniforms and shoes

By

Barbara Santamaria

Published
Sep 3, 2018

Back to school shopping has become the third biggest spending seasonal event in the UK, beaten only by Christmas and Black Friday, but department stores and specialist retailers are losing ground to cut-price supermarkets.

According to a new report from Mintel, a market research company, UK parents splashed out £915 million on back to school products last year, spending as much as £436 million on school uniforms and shoes.

In fact, uniforms and footwear made up almost half of market spend in 2017, followed by sportswear, which made up 18% of sales and accounted for £164 million. And the spend per family is rising, with average parent spending £273 on uniform, shoes, sportswear, bags and stationery last year, compared to £218 in 2016.

The 25% increase is being driven by inflation, the increased cost of childrenswear, a previous birth rate boom and the decision to raise the school leaving age to 18 in 2015, said the report.

“There has also been a trend among school students to want more ‘fashionable’ stationery and school accessories, which adds to costs. And parents are willingly buying more branded school items, including bags and coats, perhaps influenced by the various back-to-school advertising campaigns focused on branded goods,” said Chana Baram, research analyst at Mintel.

This is making the shopping event highly lucrative for department stores and specialist retailers, but the research shows that just 9% of shoppers look for back-to-school items in department stores. Just 14% buy them from an online-only retailer, and 13% from a specialist school retailer, while 33% prefer supermarkets.

“Currently supermarkets are the preferred place to purchase back-to-school items, with parents attracted by the convenience of being able to buy all school items in one place. Other retailers could benefit from offering a wider variety of school-related products to help make them more appealing to busy parents,” said Baram from Mintel.

Another measure retailers could take to help time-strapped parents is to showcase all back-to-school ranges in the same area. And time is of the essence, as almost 10% of parents stock up in the last week of the summer holidays.

“There tends to be a flurry of back-to-school spending in the 2-5 week period before the start of the new school year. The period a few weeks prior to the new term is therefore a prime time for retailers to focus on back-to-school promotional and marketing activity. During this time, retailers can help parents by placing all school-related items from clothing to stationery, in one distinct area to make any last minute trips quick and less stressful,” Chana concluded.