Back-To-School Sales are Seeing Early Growth in the Office Supplies Industry

Unit sales are up 2% year over year, according to NPD

Image of Maria Kingston By Maria Kingston.
Updated Aug 8, 2022

PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. (PRWEB) August 08, 2022 - According to The NPD Group, back-to-school sales are seeing early growth in the office supplies industry with unit sales up 2% through the first three weeks of the season compared to last year (three weeks ending July 23, 2022, excluding storage categories as well as janitorial and breakroom supplies). This unit sales increase is being driven by sales in the e-commerce channel for school list items. In fact, e-commerce unit sales are up 35% year over year, after a 2% decline for the same period last year that resulted from consumers returning to stores and strong e-commerce performance in 2020.

Revenue sales are up 4%, which is in line with NPDs Future of Office Supplies forecast expectation of a 6% revenue growth during the third quarter (Q3) of 2022. Top selling categories from a unit sales perspective include crayons, portfolios, and color markers.

Unit performance this back-to-school season has been stronger than anticipated and the growth in e-commerce speaks to the importance of a digital strategy and omni-retail strategy in promoting convenience for the office and school supplies consumer throughout the season, said Leen Nsouli, executive director and office supplies industry analyst for NPD. We expect the brick-and-mortar channel will see dollar growth as we near the mid-season period, as more consumers head out to stores to take advantage of back-to-school promotions, tax-free holidays, and prepare for the return to classrooms.

About The NPD Group NPD is a global market information company offering data, industry expertise, and prescriptive analytics to help our clients understand todays retail landscape and prepare for the future. Over 2,000 companies worldwide rely on us to help them measure, predict, and improve performance across all channels, including brick-and-mortar, e-commerce, and B2B. We have services in 21 countries worldwide, with operations spanning the Americas, Europe, and APAC. Practice areas include apparel, appliances, automotive, beauty, books, B2B technology, consumer technology, e-commerce, fashion accessories, food consumption, foodservice, footwear, home, home improvement, juvenile products, media entertainment, mobile, office supplies, retail, sports, toys, and video games. For more information, visit npd.com. Follow us on Twitter: @npdgroup.

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