How to promote sales on back to school season

Summer is nearing completion, the major retailers and consumers are already in busy for back to school shopping season. In the past five years within United States back to school season online shopping sales increased by 75% or more. With this trend of continuous development, Yahoo did investigations of during back to school season searching trends through mobile phone, designed to help marketing staff to attract consumers as soon as possible.

Some of these investigation result show that almost 50% of back to school shopping took place in July and August. The busiest day of back to school shopping in 2016 is August 14 (Sunday), which is 660% higher than the daily average. The products search through mobile device in back to school season increased by 34% in 2016. Compared to other types, shoppers are most likely to search for clothing products on mobile devices. Yahoo's spokesman, Courtney McKlveen, talked with FierceRetail, a news media focused on the US retail market trend, to anticipate the shopping habits of consumers returning to school this year.

FierceRetail (FR): Why the spending of back to school in the past few years increased so fast?

Courtney McKlveen (CM): online Shopping has significantly increased back-to-school spending in the past few years. According to eMarketer said that since 2012, back to school season spending has increased by more than 75%. For busy parents and students, online shopping can be more convenient for them to study and purchase the specific needs of the goods, without the need to go to the physical store to buy. More importantly, the student's extended courses and professional courses also contributed to the spending of consumers in back to school season, which has increased by 14% since 2012.

FR: What is the difference in the trend of back to school season this year?

CM: Although full channel marketing is not a new word, but this year the marketing staff is doing greater investment in whole channel marketing. And in the implementation of how to run this idea, which for many retailers will be an ideological change. By establishing marketing campaigns based on consumer insight data, retailers can use the right news at the right time to reach consumers on the right device.

FR: How to encourage consumers to shop as early as possible and to shop throughout the summer?

CM: back to school keywords search volume from July to August is soaring, but according to our latest research, consumers will also find promotional offers in the winter break. Marketing staff can be planning related influential marketing promotion in the other major shopping season of the year, not just concerned about the summer back to school season. By enabling marketing to drive data, brands can create targeted native ad experiences on the mobile and PC side.

FR: Do you think this year's back to school season mobile phone shopping will once again upgrade it? In addition, whether students or parents more like mobile phone shopping?

CM: Mobile phone in this year's back school season shopping will play a greater role, because it has become an important part of the purchase of consumers. From January to December, the proportion of back-school searches on mobile phones increased by 500%. Mobile phones continue to bring people convenience for busy parents and students, marketing staff must make cross-platform marketing promotion. Keep in mind that the millennialism are priority mobile consumers, and many of these people are becoming parents, and mobile devices will be their first choice when shopping on back to school.

FR: How should marketers stand out from the back to school season "bombing" and attract customers?

CM: Parents and students will consider of buying back-to-school products throughout the summer, so the marketers need to put their promotional information in front of the potential customers at the consumer's stage of consideration. Our research shows that consumers will begin research before the peak of shopping, so marketers need to consider more than just August and September. In this way, since consumers would see advertisements a few days or weeks ago, they are more likely to visit the store or buy goods online when they are ready to make a decision.

FR: why so many consumers have to wait until the "last minute" before returning to school shopping? Are they looking for the cheapest items or for anything else?

CM: Overall, we see consumers shopping processing become longer, and they spend more time studying before making a final purchase. Of course, the price also play an important role for who likes to buy cheap goods, these consumers are willing to wait for the most favorable transactions appear.

FR: Do you have anything else to tell us about the back to school sale in 2017?

CM: The concept of back-to-school shopping has been expanded. In general, today retailers begin their marketing efforts earlier in order to take advantage of making important effect on spending decisions of shoppers before the peak shopping period. Smart marketing staff will be targeted through the information to attract their best customers, and contributed to the purchase, which will affect the choice of consumers in this shopping season.

Except for Amazon and eBay, more and more shoppers are choosing to buy on other B2C online stores where more items and cheaper prices are offered. This time you should not miss the promotion of back to school sale released by Cell Phone Age.