If you have school or college-age kids,you'll know that the back to school shopping bonanza is big business. Accordingto the NationalRetail Federation (NRF) parents are set to spend a record-breaking $80.7billion on sending their little darlings back to the classroom after the summerrecess. That's an average of $696.70 for every household with kids in schooland a massive $976.78 for those with kids in college.
Those school supplies and books, clothesand accessories, and shoes don’t come cheap – but these are items that morethan 90% of parents are planning to buy over the next month or so. Another 54%of parents are also considering purchasing expensive electronic devices, suchas smartphones, tablets and laptop computers, for the new school term. If youare in the business of selling to the back to school market, you can forget theholidays because this is your peak sales period.
Note:If you are still not convinced by back to school opportunity then considerthis: Back to school is the second busiest onlineshopping period of the year after the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend in therun-up the holidays. Valentines Day and Mothering Sunday don’t even come close.There’s a lot of money invested in sending those kids back to the classroom andyou’d be unwise to ignore it.
MobileCommerce
Just because this is a busy shopping periodfor many parents, it doesn’t mean they want to waste the precious summer monthshanging out at the mall. Back to school shopping is increasingly about onlineretail and the vast majority of that is done via a mobile device.
In 2018, the eCommerce software company Shopifystated that eCommerce sales from mobile devices reached a staggering 66% overthe back to school shopping period, compared to just 33.5% via a desktopdevice.
While the NRF suggests that many parentsplan their back to school shopping to coincide with big eCommerce sales eventslike Amazon’s Prime Day on July 16th, Shopify suggests it also seessignificant surges at the end of August and around Labor Day.
ACompetitive Market
Sales events, including the aforementionedAmazon Prime Day, highlight a very real problem for many online retailers. Theback to school opportunity may be big but just how do you compete with anomnipresent brand like Amazon?
According to TechCrunch, Amazon owns 49% of all eCommerce sales in the United States and 5% of all retail spend. When you factor in big-box retailers like Wal-Mart and Staples (who also drive a lot of sales online) this doesn’t leave very much for smaller online brands to fight over unless they get strategic about how they acquire and retain their customers.
Thankfully, in the mobile environment(where the bulk of the back to school sales action happens) there areopportunities for ambitious retailers to grab prime retail real estate backfrom the big guys and take their fair share of the profits.
Pre-LoadedSuccess
Digital Turbine enables retailers topre-load their eCommerce shopping apps directly on the home screens of millionsof new smartphones, helping new customers become familiar with their brand atthe moment of maximum engagement – unboxing and activation. This familiarity isthen re-enforced every time a device owners looks at their screen.
FurtherReading: AppDistribution: Alternative Routes to Market for Android Developers.
With the average smartphone user “checking”their device on average 52 times per day, it doesn’t take long before apreviously unknown organization becomes a well-known brand.
TheKids are Alright
Back to school doesn’t just createopportunities for brands to target parents with their retail apps, theend-of-summer sales season also places smartphones into the hands of millionsof young people every year. This creates a huge opportunity to promoteeducational and recreational (games) apps to a whole new market who, let’s faceit just cannot put their devices down.
FurtherReading: TopGame Developer Enjoys 7x Lift in Conversion Rates with SingleTap™ Installs.
LearnMore
To learn more about how pre-loading yourapp on millions of new devices can help you maximize the opportunity of back toschool shopping, talk to one of our smartphone app marketing experts today.
