One in five respondents (22%) said they’d participated in back-to-school shopping in the past year, evenly split between women (52%) and men (48%).
Three quarters of these (76%) are parents of schoolchildren. One in ten (10%) are grandparents, and one in six (17%) are people with no children of their own. Students, who may be shopping for themselves, make up 11% of back-to-school shoppers.
Over half (54%) buy most items in one shopping session ahead of the academic year, but four in ten (41%) buy things as they need them throughout the year.
Two fifths (43%) spent more than £100 on their last shop, with 13% spending over £200. School uniforms are the most widely purchased item, with two thirds (67%) of back-to-school shoppers buying it.
Asda rules in the North, Amazon most popular in London
The top three back-to-school retail stores in Britain are Asda (31%), Tesco (31%) and Amazon (28%). Specialized uniform stores are also widely used (25%), as is Marks and Spencer (23%). Sainsbury’s came in at number six with nearly one in five (19%) back-to-school shoppers buying there.
There are, however, significant regional differences when it comes to back-to-school retail. Asda is the top brand in the North (39%), Midlands (37%) and Scotland (36%), but comes in fifth place in London where only 17% shopped there last time. Tesco leads in the South (37%), East (34%), Wales (38%) and London (33%), where it is tied with Amazon.
Specialized uniform stores which sell to a quarter (25%) of shoppers across the country do much less well in London (16.4%), the East (16%) and Scotland (18%).
