Official Blog

Always trying to keep the pulse of the latest trends and information available in order to keep our merchants performing at their most successful level, I’ve decided to write a Part II on the subject of Back to School spending this year. It is the story of NOW!!

Please check out the following links:

Nielsen Forecasts Back To School Spending at a 2.6% Growth for ‘08 and Sales of Nearly $1.6B

Mom’s Predict Spending Up 8% Overall, One-Stop Stores & Footwear Retailers Take Note!

So, if you’re an online retailer (and most of you are), there are dozens of questions that are coming to mind regarding your Back-to-School, rake-in-the-dough scenarios : ) Here are just a few:

1. Are you listing your products on CSE’s like Smarter.com? Breadth & Depth!
2. Are you advertising a Back-to-School ‘Special Offer’ on your site and in your feed with Smarter?
3. If you are a Footwear retailer, are you listing with Smarter.com? Great time of year for footwear buys!
4. Are you talking front and center on your site about “saving gas” and the convenience of shopping online (- combined with your “free shipping on orders over $50” special offer above - ) and featuring loads of adorable photos of little school boys & girls in back-packs and brand-new tennis shoes??
5. If not, why not? The other news item to take note of (check the following link) is that Online Advertising spending is NOT going down! So, what are your competitors up to for BTS? I think we know:

LA Times: Online Ad Spending Doesn’t Stop for “R” - Word : )

If you are not this prepared for Back-to-School, what are your plans for Holiday and Q4?? You’d better call me quick!

It’s that wonderful time of year, filled with backpacks, #2 pencil requests, and for older kids: really cool electronic calculators! There are a number of articles out this week giving projected dollar-spend amounts for the season, I’ve chosen two to highlight following.

The first one is from our friends at Marketing Charts with information supplied by National Retail Federation:

K-12 Back-to-School Spending to Remain High

Even with economic factors being what they are right now, the dollar-amount families are planning on spending is still up, $594.24 over $563.40 reported last year! Good news! This is in categories like clothing, computer & cell phones, shoes and school supplies – staples of Smarter merchants right? One other thing to note is that purchasing online is expected to come up over last year as well, 24.8% vs. 21.4% from last year – are you ready??

The second is from PromoMagazine.com:

Back to School Holiday Spending Projected to Increase 7%

“A random phone sample of 7,500 households indicated the average household spend by category would be: clothing, $265; computers, $230, up 10% over last year; supplies, $100 (+5%), books, $25 (+14%) and shoes, $115 (+15%). The increase in shoe spending is due to shifts in footwear styles every few years, Passikoff said.”

Here’s the key; if you’re already a Smarter merchant, please don’t forget to add all your coupons, special rebates and discounts into your feed with us – this is a critical time of year for special offers! And…if you’re not a Smarter merchant, there is no better time to sign-up and ‘get settled’ in with us ….

…..because you know the big Q4 in just right around the corner!!

Happy August!

PS/

Don’t forget that Smarter.com now offers many additional ways for you to market your store and products to our over 24 million visitors each month! Drop me a line if you’d like additional details about our site-sponsorships or display advertising opportunities!