Disney Princess Table and Chairs Set Ninja Turtles Table & Chairs Set Mickey Mouse Table & Chairs Set Cars Activity Table & Chairs Set Paw Patrol Table & Chair Set Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fold N' Go Chair 4pc Frozen Toddler Bedding Set Finding Dory Table & Chairs Set Tsum Tsum Mini Saucer Chair Dora The Explorer Bean Bag Chair Finding Dory Toddler Bed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Sit & Store Folding Ottoman Shimmer and Shine Table & Chairs Set Saucer Chair - Finding Dory Saucer Chair - Secret Life Of Pets Heaven Sent Girl - Toy Bag Larkin and Princeton Bed Rails Milan Twin Bed - Black Milan Twin Bed - White Milan Twin Bed - Blue Milan Twin Bed - Red Advertised products shown may not be available in all stores, and brands may vary by store. Sorry, we can't offer rain checks on seasonal, special-buy or while-supplies-last items. We reserve the right to limit quantities. We apologize for, but are not responsible for, typographical errors.
Sign up to receive exclusive deals! The fastest way to start saving money is to find a fred’s store near you. enter zip, city and state or intersection Show only stores with a Pharmacy. $5 future use coupon with $5+ purchase Link: Click here to use Free shipping on $40+ order $15 off $100+ coupon Code: Click here for code Free shipping on $30+ coupon $5 off $50+ coupon Never Miss Another Deal Get the latest deals delivered straight to your inboxThe fashion brand Kate Spade is most known for luxury handbags. But it is also banking on gold-accented staplers, monogrammed planners and $30 ballpoint pens to help buoy sales during the increasingly important back-to-school shopping season.The discount retailer Dollar Tree is also expecting students and their parents to lift sales, particularly after an unusually weak second quarter. But instead of fancy notebooks, it is focusing on the other end of the price spectrum, like $1 packs of tape, glue sticks and pencils.
As the income gap in the United States has turned into a chasm, luxury and discount retailers have become increasingly deft at attracting people at the separate ends of the income spectrum. Stores positioned for the middle, like traditional department stores, have struggled by comparison.These days, that divide extends more than ever to what students wear and carry with them to their school lockers. “Both luxury retailers and value stores, like dollar stores, are benefiting right now from the back-to-school trend,” said Jharonne Martis, a retail analyst with Thomson Reuters. “They’re really benefiting from their core consumer.” Parents expect to spend an average of $673.57 on electronics, clothes and notebooks this year, compared with $630.36 last year, according to the National Retail Federation, an industry trade group. In total, parents of kindergarten through 12th-grade students say they will spend $27.3 billion on school supplies this year, up from $18.4 billion in 2007.
The back-to-school season is the second-biggest shopping period of the year, behind Christmas. But while families will spend more than before, how they will do it — and where they will do it — varies widely.A growing list of designer notebooks, luxury desk accessories and even beanbag chairs now caters to wealthy back-to-school shoppers. Shoppers can buy a $195 Gucci headband, a $572 Versace backpack and a $28 Terez pencil case on the back-to-school section of Saks’ website. Restoration Hardware has a new “teen” line that includes a $2,000 “riveted aluminum” desk and $250 faux fur beanbag chairs.Ms. Martis said she expected Kate Spade’s desk accessories and stationery products to be a big focus this season, projecting that sales would rise 7 percent this quarter at stores open at least a year. (The company said it could not make executives available for an interview.)But back-to-school items are also expected to buoy sales at discount retailers like T. J. Maxx, whose appeal is increasingly wide and which aim at the growing number of poor students and families in the United States.In 2007, about nine million public school students came from low-income households, according to the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.
In 2014, there were more than 11 million, according to the most recent data.Some of these families rely on backpack drives and other support from nonprofit or community groups. Many, though, are left seeking the best deals. Retailers, including the discount stores, have responded by pushing bigger promotions earlier in the shopping season. That, in turn, has seemed to push people to do research on their own: Back-to-school search queries rose sharply the week of July 11, a full week earlier than last year, according to data released recently by Google. Some stores have also used tax-free holidays to encourage shopping. Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, provided a list of tax-free holidays by state, along with all the school-related items to which they would apply.One big back-to-school item this year: uniforms. Many retailers are promoting them heavily, like Target, which has promoted half-off prices on uniforms. “Our people said that whether it’s Burlington or Target or J. C. Penney or Sears, the uniform section was the hottest part of the competitive space for back to school,” said Craig Johnson, the president of Customer Growth Partners, a retail consulting group.
“About twice as many stores this year as last are doing specials on uniforms.”Retailers who cater to middle-class consumers have been struggling, slashing prices in what has become an aggressive race to the bottom. Sales at traditional department stores have slumped, and once-mighty institutions like Macy’s and Sears have had to close stores.Some retailers have cast a wider net. Jamie Nordstrom, the president of Nordstrom stores, a legacy department store trying to adapt to new consumer tastes, said it had found consumers to want a variety of prices. So for back-to-school, the retailer offers a mix: a $495 Burberry girls’ cross-body bag, next to a $32 backpack and a set of $17 gel pens. “We don’t think about it as a high-end shopper and a low-end shopper,” Mr. Nordstrom said. “Most people, as they’re living today, they’re wearing high-end and low-end at the same time.”The income gap plays out in other ways for students, too.Supply lists can vary widely — it is not uncommon to see USB flash drives, graphing calculators or pocket dictionaries in many wealthier districts.
And budget cuts have forced many schools to rely more on parents for what would once have been considered essentials: things like construction paper, tissues or pencils.“They want like four boxes of crayons, 48 pencils,” said Natalie Pumphrey, a 33-year-old single mother of five from San Antonio, Tex. “I’m having trouble buying school supplies for my own children, and I feel like I’m buying for the whole class.” Factor in extracurricular activities and the difference between the money spent by high- and low-income students is even starker, said Brent Wilder, the corporate public relations director for Huntington National Bank. The company has analyzed back-to-school supply lists from about 30 schools in Ohio and surrounding states every year for the last decade.This year, Huntington estimates that the families of elementary-school-age students will be expected to pay for an average of $659 worth of supplies and fees, while high school students will need $1,498. That is up from $351 and $894 in 2007, the first year the bank began doing the survey.