Bite-Sized Insights: Parents Definitely Prefer Online for Buying School Books

Back to school shopping family lead

Bite-Sized Insights: Parents Definitely Prefer Online for Buying School Books

For this week’s bite-sized insights question, we were interested to find out how parents prefer to buy different items as they plan for Back to School time. Take a quick read of this week’s bite-sized insights to find out what parents are saying about Back to school shopping.

Get Insights Direct from Parents

Would you like business-transforming insights for your brand? Use our tailored panels of engaged parents and our dedicated private platform to gather critical insights to help your decision making and activate customers.  Contact us now to find how we can help.

We asked our Insights panel of parents to tell us what their preference for purchasing different back to school items online, in-store or click & collect. Here’s how they answered:

back to school shopping preferences

We also asked When planning for back to school, what could retailers do better to help you? Comments from our panel members included:

“I love when retailers group everything, so the school books you can go on choose the school and class and then the whole book and stationery list comes up so you can just buy it all in one go without having to search for anything. That really helps me so I don’t forget something from the list.”

“The big retailers like Tesco & Dunnes should stock the colours for uniforms of schools in their area.”

“Accurate sizing details for uniforms (waist, arm, leg),  school bags (to fit all books) and lunch boxes (bag friendly) is very important!”

“Online retailers for school books really need to have great stock levels as it is so annoying when you get half way through placing an order and some of the books aren’t available. It means another delivery cost or having to go to another retailer and starting again! Same for the uniform suppliers, the kids need to try them on but they don’t always have all items in stock so it means having to go back in-store to collect. I’m happy to order the schoolbag online if they want the same as they had previously in a different colour so as long as an online retailer has a good choice of school bags I will order there instead.

“I’d like more offers, free items or extras with new bags/books and stationery.”

back to school shopping

Actionable Insights for Back to School Retailers

  • Many parents want to spread the cost of Back to School purchases out where possible, so offering offers across the summer months or bundling BTS items together for offers at different points in the purchasing cycle can appeal.
  • As parents prefer to buy clothes and, in particular, footwear as near to starting school as possible, retailers could consider offering appointment slots to streamline the service for parents.
  • Understanding what would motivate parents to buy and activate them to recommend is key, contact us today to find out how we can help. 
We will be bringing out our annual Back to School shopping insights report out soon so keep an eye out on our blog for that. 
 

Related Articles