Back-to-school in Britain: who’s shopping and what are they buying?

With each September comes a new academic year and a new back-to-school (BTS) shopping season. What school supplies are Britons buying, and where are they buying them?

There are a lot of back-to-school shoppers in Britain. One in five respondents (22%) said they’d participated in BTS shopping in the past year, evenly split between women (52%) and men (48%).

Most of these (76%) are parents of schoolchildren. Grandparents make up 10%, and 17% have no children of their own. Students, who may be shopping for themselves, make up 11% of back-to-school shoppers.

People also shop in different patterns. Over half (54%) buy most items in one shopping session ahead of the academic year, but 41% buy things as they need them throughout the year.

Uniforms, shoes, pens: What are Britons buying for back-to-school?

BTS shopping isn’t cheap. Two fifths (43%) spent more than £100 on their last shop, with 13% spending over £200. What did they spend it on? School uniforms are the most widely purchased item, with 67% of back-to-school shoppers buying some elements.

These are followed by shoes (66%), stationery (58%) and bags (52%). Books are significantly less popular, with only 27% purchasing them.

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 shopped (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%). Londoners also are more likely than average to shop at smaller retailers such as Argos (15% vs. 7%), eBay (12% vs. 7%) and Lidl (16% vs. 6%).

Also read: Scribbles and Screens: A look at the evolving stationery market in the UK

Methodology: YouGov Profiles is based on continuously collected data and rolling surveys, rather than from a single limited questionnaire. Data figures have been weighted by age, gender, education and social grade to be representative of all adults in Great Britain (18 years or older) and reflect the latest ONS population estimates. Data for seasonal surveys such as back-to-school data is collected year-round, with a boost in data collection surrounding the event. Learn more about Profiles.