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Stores Join Students In Dreading Back-To-School Season

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By JACOB SCHNEIDER The Tampa Tribune

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 1, 2008

TAMPA - In seven years of selling school supplies, Traci Torres cannot remember a back-to-school shopping season shaping up as gloomy as this one.

"Since last January or February, people are, instead of spending money on supplies ... using it to live," said Torres, manager at AOE Artworld, an art supply store in Tampa. "They're buying supplies only as needed. They're not coming in with a class list and saying we need everything on the list."

Back-to-school shopping has traditionally provided a welcome pop to retailers before the Christmas shopping season, with parents and teachers lining up to buy notebooks, binders, pens and school clothes.

Tampa Bay area store managers and industry analysts, however, say they anticipate a noticeable slide in spending during this school shopping season. Parents and other customers are grumbling about high gas prices, debt and tight budgets.

Back-to-school sales are expected to drop by as much as 5 percent nationwide compared with last year, according to Britt Beemer of America's Research Group, a survey company that analyzes consumer behavior. Beemer said he predicts that even clothing sales, which typically are unchanged because parents regard them as necessities for school, will suffer this year.

Cutting Back On The Basics

The National Retail Federation, a business group, however, predicts spending will rise overall, fueled chiefly by electronics. However, it expects spending on core school supplies such as notebooks, pens and clothing to be flat or to decline.

Meanwhile, an incentive that has helped drive spending on school supplies during many of the past 10 years in Florida won't be available this year: a sales tax holiday on school supplies.

In previous years, back-to-school supplies have been exempt from sales taxes for a week to 10-day period in August, just before the start of school. This year public schools open in Hillsborough and Pasco counties Aug. 18. Pinellas County schools open Aug. 19.

The Legislature did not approve the sales tax holiday this year. Lawmakers balked, saying that the state could not afford to lose the tax revenue during a financially tough year.

Last year's nine-day tax holiday on school supplies saved consumers $28 million, according to the Legislature's Office of Economic and Demographic Research.

Back-to-school shopping is hardly a trivial expense - according to the National Retail Federation, the average parent planned to spend $594 this summer. That's why all of these factors are converging to make this shopping season tough on parents.

"The tax break made a huge difference" last year, said Julie Carter of Tampa as she browsed a local Office Depot store for deals for her daughter, Abby, who is heading into sixth grade.

Carter said that gas prices have made her think twice about what she's buying and how much it costs.

"You stay close to home," she said. "You're not going to drive somewhere to see if there's a deal."

The shortage of summer jobs for teens and youths also might soften back-to-school purchases because many students won't have much disposable income this fall, Beemer said.

Such circumstances are changing shopping patterns. The International Council of Shopping Centers found that 90 percent of households recently surveyed said they will pick up everything at discount stores and the retail federation found that less than 2 percent of parents will buy items at full price, a dramatic drop.

Torres said she expects this year's back-to-school sales to drop as much as 25 percent from previous years.

According to Torres, at least three Tampa school-supply stores have gone out of business as the market has declined over the past two years. Despite rising supply and shipping costs, however, Torres said that she is reticent to pass on price increases to her customers, mostly college students and schoolteachers, because she knows they too are suffering.

Retailers Getting Creative

To draw back customers, Torres said the store is diversifying its products, offering increased discounts, and doing more advertising and promotions than usual. Chain retailers also are offering steeper-than-usual discounts in an attempt to retain customers.

Bealls, a Bradenton-based discount department store chain, is rolling out a discount program next week to attract shoppers.

"Bealls is anticipating that sales will be more spread out as compared to last year as a result of the elimination of the Florida tax-free days by the state Legislature," said Gwen Bennett, vice president of Bealls.

The chain is offering a 10 percent discount Sunday through Wednesday to offset the loss of the tax holiday. Bennett said the chain has noticed that online sales have received a boost from customers wanting to avoid driving.

Office Depot is offering a free back-to-school item each week, as well as sales on core items such as filler paper, binder dividers, and backpacks - with some prices dropping as low as a penny.

"You can tie this back to it being a competitive time frame and one that is in the midst of a troubled economy," said Office Depot spokesman Jason Shockley.

Wal-Mart is trying to woo shoppers by offering core school supply items for less than $1.

The Publix and Sweetbay supermarket chains are offering discounted back-to-school items, with Publix launching a two-for-one campaign on school breakfast and lunch items.

"We are offering a larger selection of our buy-one-get-one-free items, really taking into account that everyone's feeling the crunch of the economy," Publix spokesman Shannon Patten said.

Such deals sound good to Plant High School student Kamber Stefany. She said that she is trying to do her part for her family's budget by focusing more on value-priced school supplies this year.

"I never cared too much ... but I'm definitely going for the cheapest because it all gets lost during the year anyway," she said.

Material from The Associated Press was used in this report. Reporter Jacob Schneider can be reached at jschneid@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7850.

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