Back To School: Progress Report

While it’s the height of school holidays, many parents are already turning their attention to kitting the kids out ready for a new school year in September. StationeryNews catches up with a few indies to see how sales are going.

Sally Stephenson, The Pencil Case, Cowbridge

“Back To School season is going pretty well so far. As well as stationery, we sell school uniform for all our local schools – we are a one-stop-school-shop for younger children and teenagers.

Alongside the school uniform, our best-selling stationery items so far this summer are the ever-popular erasable pens (from both Legami and Puckator), Platignum S-Tixx ballpoint pens for school and Legami Lovely Friends gel pens for home.

We’re all ready for and looking forward to the next three weeks, we’ll be getting busier and busier right up until the last day of the summer holidays!”

Sandra Jervis, Creative Cove, Lampeter

“BTS is slow getting off the ground; people are just beginning to trickle in with it. We had a lot more buying in July, before school had even finished, so I don’t know if that is skewing it. Hopefully it will kick into force soon. It’s all about Premier Stationery and Maped though, those two are my main stays. It is Premier triple pocket pencil cases for the win!”

Ray Williams, JPS Stationers, Chesham

“Plenty of customers will leave it to the last minute! The big multiples have some amazing deals, but we have ready-made school packs which are going really well. I am getting more requests for these, not just for the secondary schools, which we already do, but for the junior schools as well.”

Sarah Holmes, Pencil Me In, Elgin

“Our schools return on Wednesday 14 August here so we are at the end of the holiday juggle. Our best selling items have been our Back to School pencil set, which is a set of personalised colouring pencils and 4 x 2b pencils in a gift box for £11.50. For the older kids returning to high school a brass sharpener is a very popular item and if course erasable pens are popular with everyone! We also had some cute animal rulers from Rex London over the summer and the sausage dog is absolutely winning that race.”

Sarah Laker, Stationery Supplies, Marple and Wilmslow

“Back to School feels earlier than inn previous year. I think parents are wanting to spread the cost. Legami will be appearing in many pencil cases in September, as nearly every BTS sale includes one or a few Legami products. We also do a number of stationery sets, including the basics (pens, pencil case, compass, glue stick etc) and they sell very well.”

Nish Kanabar, Castlegate Stationery, Wetherby

“As far as back to school is concerned, we have seen a pattern in the last three years or so, where the days of when everything was left to buy just before new school term have gone. BTS buying now starts before summer holidays start, and runs into the new term. Popular items are pencil cases, geometry sets, pens, rulers, protractors, compasses, pencil sharpeners and erasers to name a few. Traditional stationery is, and always will be the best seller.”