Did summer feel 11 minutes long to anyone else? When the State Fair rolls around, at least here in Minnesota, we know it’s only a matter of time before cute kids with backpacks grace our Instagram feeds. BRAT summer is over; long live plaid coats and apple cider donuts.
Lucky for us, just like last year, broadhead board of advisors member and retail expert Anne Mezzenga stopped by to chat with our EVP of brand, Lynne Robertson, about spending habits, fashion trends and more. Read on:
Lynne Robertson: So, I have a question for you. Do you remember your very first day of school?
Anne Mezzenga: I do! I remember what I was wearing. I was wearing a multi-colored turtleneck with corduroy overalls — a dress. OshKosh B’gosh, for sure. And then I had a little duck pin on my turtleneck. I was very excited about it. And Keds.
LR: What are you seeing in terms of back-to-school shopping trends this year that may be different than in years past?
AM: Last year was a tremendous year for back to school. NRF is showing, though, that spending is dropping this year by about $15 less per household when it comes to back-to-school supplies.
The other thing that we’re seeing is value over brand loyalty. Consumers used to be all about the Crayola brand crayons, the Ticonderoga pencils. And now, you look at Walmart, Target, the big players like Staples, everybody has their own brands that are just a little bit cheaper. And overall, families are looking to maximize wherever they can so they can get more for their budget.
LR: On that topic, how much of an influence are loyalty and rewards programs relative to where people are shopping?
AM: It’s so big this year. Walmart is always going to beat people for low prices so we’re seeing a lot of retailers really lean into their loyalty programs. What can consumers redeem for getting points when they make purchases? We’re even seeing DoorDash lean into subscriptions and really start to pull people in through the subscription universe versus the alternative of just providing dollar off coupons here and there.
LR: This time of year, there is tremendous pressure for retailers in terms of supply and demand, omnichannel and buy-online-pickup-in-store. How are retailers responding to that kind of pressure? What’s most important for them to fulfill?
AM: The key focus this year is having visibility into inventory, and planning accurately to have products available at the right time. 57% of families are still shopping for school supplies online. That’s a big number. Retailers need to be thinking about how they can see what inventory is where, especially depending on different types of start times for different schools around the country, and then looking at how they source and ship from stores. For example, are they doing consolidated shipments so that they can reduce costs on shipping instead of shipping an eraser in a giant box and paying for that?
It really comes down to knowing what product is in which place and how retailers can get that to consumers as affordably and efficiently as possible.
LR: I was reading that Amazon has shifted the timing of Prime Day to accommodate earlier back-to-school shopping. Are you seeing that trend across retailers?
AM: That’s a great observation. As Amazon moves its Prime Day deals to two times per year (July and October), everyone must follow. You see retailers like Target doing Circle Week that week, Walmart offering exclusive benefits, Wayfair’s Way Day moving up, electronics retailers like Best Buy or Staples and others really making sure that they can take advantage of the deal seeking consumer during that point.
LR: Let’s talk a little bit more about fashion trends you’re seeing this year.
AM: We’re seeing a return to “Dadcore” among middle school, into high school and even college. One brand that’s outperformed others and has come out more prolifically over the last several years is New Balance. New Balance just surpassed Under Armour in revenue this year, which is a big deal. I was in Europe this summer and in Paris, everyone’s wearing New Balance shoes with skirts.
Another trend that I need to talk about is how tween and high school boys are going to single-handedly save department stores — because of fragrance. This has been a huge trend that I feel like is not being talked about. But last weekend, my 13-year-old wanted to go to Macy’s and Nordstrom and some of these other department stores because he wanted to test the fragrances. They’ve blown up on TikTok. Macy’s was doing a 15% off promotion for fragrances, which rarely happens. Nordstrom, Ulta and Sephora matched that 15% off, which is wild when you think about those categories rarely going on sale.
I was in New York this past week and I went to a very small boutique shop called Scent Bar. You walk in and sure enough, they have a whole tray full of TikTok’s hottest fragrances. An employee told me they have more young men coming into their store than they have ever had before, and it’s shifted the entire way that they think about marketing to this new consumer.
LR: What else should we be looking at, relative to back-to-school trends?
AM: It goes back to loyalty and really looking for value. You’re going to continue to see mass retailers like Walmart, Target and Kohl’s offer true value for the dollar. We’re obviously still going to see a lot of fast fashion coming into play. So Shein, Temu, H&M, Zara are still high on consumers’ lists because of the value of what they can get for their money.
LR: One last question. What has been the impact of social media on consumers and trends?
AM: It’s huge. H&M has a new flagship store in New York that I was visiting. They put RFID tracking in their products so they can see where things are moving around the store, what’s being picked up, what’s being put down. But more importantly, they told me they’re looking at social media trends and they’re changing their displays in their windows regularly, sometimes almost daily to support what’s trending on social. Then they compare that against the trends that they’re seeing in store and what people are picking up. It’s completely changed how they’re merchandising and how they’re setting displays in their stores.
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