Join the NRF on July 23 at 1 p.m. ET and learn what to expect this back-to-school season, including a deep dive into the latest consumer data and how tariffs are impacting spending.
Unlike gift- or celebration-driven events like Valentine’s Day or Halloween, back-to-school is an essential spending category. Every year kids need clothes, notebooks, backpacks, pens and pencils. That means, in addition to being a key spending season, back-to-school also serves as a key temperature check on how families are navigating the broader economic environment.
Given the uncertainties around trade policy and concerns around inflation, this year those signals are more important than ever. The NRF research team identified three ways these challenges are impacting the 2025 back-to-school season.
June may be the official start of summer, but in recent years it’s increasingly marked the kickoff to back-to-school shopping. This year, 26% of back-to-school and college shoppers had already started browsing and buying items by early June, up from 22% last year and compared with 17% in 2019.
Shoppers have embraced early shopping around many major shopping events since the onset of the pandemic, including back-to-school and the winter holidays, primarily because it allows them to spread out their budget and because the early deals and promotions are too good to pass up.
This year, however, the ongoing uncertainty around trade is also impacting consumer behavior. Among those who have already started shopping for back-to-school, three-quarters (74%) say they are shopping earlier this year specifically because they are worried tariffs will cause prices to rise later in the season.
Back-to-school can be a costly time for many families. Last year, the average K-12 shopper budgeted $875 dollars on average, while those buying for a college student expected to spend $1,365. And this year, most shoppers (76%) are anticipating higher price tags on the items they need.
Over the past few years, these same shoppers have become adept at managing their budgets in the face of rising costs and inflation. In many cases they have already changed the brands they purchase, know how to shop around for the best price or figured out what they can trim from their back-to-school lists. But with many of these avenues exhausted, they’re looking for other ways to save if prices go up.
Shoppers, including higher-income groups, are more likely to turn to discount stores this year if back-to-school items are more expensive.
When tackling their back-to-school lists, shoppers typically split into one of two camps: About half use the season to stock up on everything they’ll need for the entire school year, while the other half buy just what they need to get started and then replenish as needed.
This year, however, some shoppers — particularly those in lower-income households — are deviating from the norm: 52% of shoppers earning less than $50,000 a year say they are planning to buy just what they need to get through the start of school, up from 45% last year. This is similar to how these households approached back-to-school shopping in 2023 when inflation drove up costs.
However, unlike 2023, most consumers do not have the same access to pandemic-induced savings or stimulus to soften the impact of higher prices. For lower-income households with limited access to credit, this means managing costs by holding off on future purchases — even if it means paying more later — in addition to other cost-saving measures like re-using last year’s items or shopping sales.
Whether they’re shopping early, looking for discount hauls or trying to make do with first-day essentials, it’s clear that K-12 and college shoppers have a different mindset this year. Register for NRF’s 2025 back-to-school webinar to keep up to date on the latest data and trends as the season unfolds.
