Survey: Back-to-school shoppers headed to discount stores

Nearly half (45%) of adults in the U.S. will buy back-to-school items this year.

Physical stores remain crucial to the back-to-school shopping experience. 

More than half (54%) of shoppers expect to purchase most back-to-school items in physical stores and 46% say that browsing and shopping in-stores has most influence on what products they buy, according to ICSC’s 2024 Back-to-School Consumer Survey.  Discount stores remain the most popular type of retailer for back-to-school shopping for seven in 10 consumers.

In other findings, about one in three consumers (32%) say that the promotions they see in-store influence the back-to-school purchases they make and 14% mainly shop in-store because there are more promotions.

Additional insights from the ICSC survey are below.

•Shoppers are more optimistic about their back-to-school shopping this year — only 44% of consumers are concerned about the affordability of school supplies, a decrease of 11 percentage points compared to last year (55%).