Ho-Ho-Kus mom Lisa Pisano, creator and editorial director of the website momalamode.net, describes herself as a big fan of online shopping. She’s ordered groceries and lighting fixtures for a home-construction project online. And she recently became an Amazon Prime member. But when it was time for an important back-to-school ritual — letting her 6-year-old son pick out his lunchbox — she did that at the Target store at Bergen Town Center in Paramus. Her son surveyed the selection and picked out an Angry Birds lunchbox, “That was his way to express his creativity and his likes.” ToniAnne Lisante , a Maywood mother of three, also is a frequent online shopper, but she finds that back-to-school shopping usually requires store visits. “Back-to-school also means back-to-your-extracurricular activities — dance class starting, sports starting,” she said. “You have to bring your children to the store because how else are you going to try on the shoes, the cleats.”
Retailers and shopping center owners are confident that the majority of American moms agree with Lisante, and that most will make multiple visits to physical stores during the peak weeks of the back-to-school shopping season. In North Jersey, those visits begin this week and run through the second weekend in September. Even so, online shopping is expected to continue to take a growing bite out of store sales, as parents combine store visits with purchases on the web. A survey released by the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) last month found that 95 percent of back-to-school shoppers plan to make purchases in stores. The survey, however, also found that most of those shoppers will be buying online as well. The ICSC and other industry groups are predicting a healthy growth spurt for back-to-school sales this year. However, online buying could steal dollars from traditional stores. According to the ICSC survey, 78 percent of back-to-school shoppers plan to spend more this year, up from the 67 percent who said they would spend more when surveyed in 2015.
A survey by the National Retail Federation, also released last month, found that parents of school- and college-age children planned to spend 11 percent more than last year’s forecast. “Families are still looking for bargains, but there are signs that they are less worried about the economy than in the past,” NRF President and Chief Executive Officer Matthew Shay said, when the survey results were released. Research firm IHS Global Insight is predicting that retail sales during the back-to-school season of July through September — excluding autos, gasoline and restaurant meals — will increase by 4 percent, compared with 3.8 percent over the same period in 2015. Another reason retailers are optimistic about the back-to-school season, despite sluggish sales in June and July, is apparel inventory levels are tighter than a year ago. That is expected to result in less discounting and lead to improved margins. “They’ve learned their lesson from over-discounting last year,” said Chris G. Christopher, director of consumer economics for IHS Global Insight.
RetailMeNot, the shopping savings and coupons website, is seeing retailers re-think their discounting strategy this year. “Retailers are getting smarter about offering the right promotions, for the right length of time, combined with the right discount,” said Michelle Skupin, senior director of global corporate communications for RetailMeNot. An ongoing challenge for physical stores and shopping malls is competing with rapidly growing online sales. Christopher said online sales will again make up a larger percentage of total back-to-school sales. “We expect approximately one dollar out of every 5.4 dollars of back-to-school retail sales to be spent online this year, compared to one dollar out of 5.9 dollars in 2015,” Christopher said. In 2005, online spending accounted for only $1 out of every $11 spent, Christopher said, underscoring the size and speed of the shift to online shopping. At Little Skye, a children’s clothing store at 171 E. Ridgewood Ave. in downtown Ridgewood, owners Melissa Troise and Paul Bordieri are reaching out to both the online shopper moms and those who prefer store shopping by having a strong web business and a physical store.
The company sold clothes online only for the first nine years it was in business, and opened the Ridgewood store a year ago. It is so pleased with the response to the Ridgewood store, Bordieri said, that it is hoping to eventually open four more. “With children’s clothing, a lot of moms want to come in and touch it,” Bordieri said. One-third of the shoppers surveyed by the ICSC said they plan to buy back-to-school items online, but pick them up in a physical store. Retailers with both online and physical stores, such as Walmart, Toys “R’’ Us and Macy’s, are encouraging that trend, because they believe someone who comes to a store to pick up an order is likely to buy additional items there. The ICSC survey confirmed the likelihood of that happening, with 84 percent of shoppers who plan to order online and pick up in store saying they will make more purchases there. Walmart in particular has been pushing the order-online, pick-up-in-store shopping option this year, making more than 200 back-to-school items available for the pickup service.
Aaron Klein, manager of the Walmart in Secaucus, said online sales at his store are up 41 percent this year. He said he also is seeing strong in-store response by parents to low prices on items such as pencils and other school supplies. A $6.88 lunchbox has been a particularly hot seller, he said. Back-to-school shopping is an important season for two North Jersey-based retail chains — The Children’s Place in Secaucus and Wayne-based Toys “R” Us. The Children’s Place, the country’s largest children’s specialty clothing chain with more than 1,000 stores in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico, plans for the back-to-school season with the intensity other retailers devote to the holiday season. “As one of the largest specialty children’s apparel retailers in the country, this season will always be important to us because parents have a specific motivator to shop this time of year,” said Jennifer Groves, senior vice president of design at The Children’s Place, in an email.
Trends lifting the company’s stores this year include denim jeans and stretch jeggings, and clothes and accessories with emoji and hashtag designs. “We’re celebrating kids growing up in the digital age with fun and age-appropriate emojis,” Groves said. At Toys “R” Us, back-to-school is a good warm-up for its most important season, the holidays, and also an early indicator of which licensed toy characters will be holiday hits. This year, merchandise such as backpacks and lunchboxes related to the animated PJ Masks television series on the Disney channel looks like a top back-to-school seller, said Jamie Uidtenhowen. vice president and general merchandising manager at Toys “R” Us. “Every year at this time we get great reads off of the licenses for fall, and we’re really optimistic with what we’re seeing from that property,” he said. The Toys “R’’ Us stores this year also are carrying a new line of Lego-themed school supplies, and those are selling well, he said.