Back to school sales represent bigger opportunities than ever for merchants willing to discount and appeal to a broader market. That projection from a Google Retail study says that school-type supplies are bought for more purposes than school supplies.  Every good office manager knows that. What might not be as clear is that parents are using the opportunity to search for items for other family members and they are price sensitive.   How could they not be?

Google’s study found that 90% of back-to-school shoppers were influenced by price. That’s not the surprise.  Those are table stakes.  You have to know that. What you may not know is that 60% reported they would be influenced by coupons. The macro economy is sluggishly grinding to a recovery.  The micro economy has tens of millions of folks out of work and struggling to stretch every dollar.

Your takeaway as a small business leader is that multiple retailers with multi-million budgets are going to bombard consumer markets in a few weeks with coupons and discount pricing.  Even though you may not even sell back-to-school type items, even for college students, your marketing messages are going to be in the mix with the discounts. Unless you’re a premium brand,  you might want to consider the global consumer mindset and ride the back-to-school discount wave.