Back-to-school shopping once a year is a huge task for every parent. Money, time, finding correct items that schools request, finding the best prices for the items that school request… It’s estimated that the average spend is $1,347 per student, not mention the big amount of time the parents spend on searching and price comparing.
While you scratch your head for how to accomplish the back-to-school shopping task, you could, before everything starts, avoid some mistakes you might make and save a lot of money and time.
Mistake 1: Take Walmart as the only shopping destination
Only a few parents were aware that office supply stores also offer competitive prices for school supplies. Back-to-school season is the season for them too, every year they launch big sale events and offering hundreds of deals for the basic supplies like pens, pencils, Crayola, erasers, glues, lunch boxes, pencil boxes, backpacks, loose-leaf paper, DUO TANG presentation covers and binders. Their dollar deals are even cheaper than what’s offered in dollar stores.
Mistake 2: Never consider online store for school supply shopping
Even online shopping is the main trend in shopping. People still tend to buy only electronic accessories, cosmetics, maybe diapers, or even clothes with no-hassle return warranties. School supplies for back to school? Hmm… they won’t have everything there, their prices are not competitive, they have shipping fees, and… the delivery is terribly slow…
The truth is, to win the battle of back-to-school, school supply online stores are trying their best to offer you all requested on the schools’ lists. And they are able to offer the lowest prices because they have no burden of rental costs and on the ground sales. To offer better shopping experience, shipping has become a problem needed to be worried less and less. For example, 123Ink.ca will offer free shipping with purchase of any 5 school supply items during the whole of August. And the delivery time can take anywhere from 1-5 business days depending on where you are located in Canada. You could avoid the back-to-school shopping chaos in Walmart, but still, save more and get school supplies on time before your kids stepping back to the classroom.
Mistake 3: Shop early doesn’t mean save more
More than half of parents go for back-to-school shopping during July and most of the shop before the end of July. Actually, most back-to-school big sale starts in August, the biggest ones normally at the 2nd and the 3rd week, even at the same time as school starts. The stores will offer dollar deals, back-to-school specials, clearance sales, sales tax-free weekends, free shipping on school supplies etc. Parents who shop too early will gradually realize that they spend a lot more than those who shop later. According to reports, each year, the shop-later-parents save more than $100 than the shop-early-parents on the unavoidable back-to-school shopping.
