Apparel Sourcing Week, 20 - 22 February 2020 - Bengaluru, India
20 - 21 July 2023
Bengaluru, India

Press Release 14 August 2021

Back-to-School season is back with a bang for retailers in 2021!

After more than 15 months of ‘Zoom’ schooling, children are now getting ready to be back to school in this vaccinated ‘new world order’. Retailers are hoping that school-related spending may strengthen and stretch over next few months, – thus providing lot more time to book orders and further extend the assortments without piling up inventories. There isn’t anything more that any supplier, particularly those into apparels and fashion, wants. Industry feedback also suggests that manufacturers are receiving orders with new requirement in design and fabric. Usually, orders for the season are shipped out by mid-June.

Back-to-school shopping which normally doesn’t start until mid-July, this year started somewhere in the middle of June – and started well too with school supplies turning out to be top sellers in Amazon’s Prime Day. The convergence of statewide re-openings followed by overlaying the timing of Prime Day has shown that the season is in for an extension. Consequently, retailers are still placing the orders and business is gaining momentum. That’s something to cheer about for the retailers and the predictions too are reflecting positivity and hope.

The forecasts are varying, but what’s common in all the predictions is that back-to-school shopping is definitely going to be on rise in 2021. One of the major factors attributed to an extraordinary selling season this year has been the pent-up demand.

Indications from experts on Back-to-School season in 2021...

NRF EXPECTS ALL TIME HIGH AS SPENDING INCREASE

If a survey by National Retail Federation (NRF) and Prosper Insights & Analytics is anything to go by, then back-to-school spending is expected to reach an all-time high in 2021. The NRF has estimated that families will spend, on an average, US $ 849 on back-to-school items, and if that happens then it will be nearly US $ 60 more than what it was in 2020. It also says that college students and their families are expected to spend around US $ 1,200 on an average this year.

SHOPPING ON THE MOVE 

In fact, according to a recent KPMG survey, conducted amongst 1,000 consumers, back-to-school shopping may increase by 9 per cent in 2021. This survey clearly stated that shoppers intend to spend US $ 268 per child this year, whereas the number stood at US $ 247 in 2020. Now that’s a 9 per cent jump! As far as retail categories are concerned, shoppers are expected to spend more on footwear (21 per cent) and apparels (14 per cent) in 2021.

APPAREL COULD BE A MAJOR PRODUCT CATEGORY TO GAIN

Mastercard SpendingPulse has predicted the year-over-year (Y-o-Y) sales to grow by 5.5 per cent from mid-July to early September this year, and 6.7 per cent when compared to 2019. Notably, clothing sales, in particular, are expected to soar as adults and kids are all set to return to offices and schools, respectively. These customers have not bought new ‘work’ clothes in a long time and are ready to splurge.

DELOITTE SEES OVERALL 16% GROWTH IN THE CATEGORY

Market consultants, Deloitte distinctly tells that parents are expecting to spend 16 per cent more on back-to-school shopping this year, a marked uptick from the 1 to 3 per cent growth rate seen in recent years. To be more precise, the spending is expected to reach US $ 32.5 billion (for K-12 students), or approximately US $ 612 per student. Another US $ 26.7 billion will be spent by back-to-college shoppers, or approximately US $ 1,459 per student.

About Apparel Sourcing Week 2023

Apparel Sourcing Week 2023, a three-day Sourcing Show not only provides the Asian manufacturers a platform to showcase their products & manufacturing capabilities to the Brands & Retailers from all over the world including India, but also extends them a chance to attend the multiple seminars (headed by industry experts), workshops, open-house discussions and networking opportunities organised during these three days, which would help the manufacturers get a better understanding of Indian and International Retail and evolving dynamics of sourcing in various markets and retail formats.

About the Organiser

Apparel Resources is well known for its benchmark publications – Apparel Online, FashTech Journal and Resource Guide published from India, Bangladesh and Vietnam. These publications have been around in the industry for over 35 years, supporting, guiding and standing by garment exporters and the retail industry globally, providing them a platform to source better