Back-to-School Forecast 2025

Seasonal Back-to-School Spending Settles Into a Period of Muted Growth

Report by Sarah Marzano | UPDATED: Apr 24, 2025

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About This Report

Consumer spending for the 2025 back-to-school shopping season will slow for the second year in a row as growth aligns with full-year retail. Ecommerce and K-12-focused purchases will drive overall spending.

Topics

Holiday & Seasonal Shopping

United States

This deck covers:

US retail and ecommerce sales forecasts for the 2025 back-to-school shopping season
Learnings from the 2024 back-to-school season
Data and insights to help brands, retailers, and marketers fine-tune 2025 back-to-school plans

This deck can help you develop commerce strategy and allocate budget for campaigns (retailers and brands)

Here’s what’s in the full report

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10charts

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Charts in This Report

Back-to-School Growth Slows for the Second Consecutive Year, Syncing With Full-Year Retail Growth Rates (billions in US back-to-school season retail sales, 2021-2025; % change in US back-to-school season vs. total full-year retail sales, 2021-2025)K-12 Spending Closes In on $50 Billion as It Continues to Drive the Majority Share of Total Sales (billions in US grades K-12 back-to-school season retail sales, % change, and % of total back-to-school season retail sales, 2021-2025)

College Spending Levels Out After a Volatile Period of Post-Pandemic Back-to-Campus Splurges and Inflation Spikes (billions in US college-bound back-to-school season retail sales, % change, and % of total back-to-school season retail sales, 2021-2025 Back-to-School Trends Settle Below Full-Year Retail in Both Ecommerce and Physical Channels (% change in US back-to-school season vs. full-year retail sales, by channel, 2023-2025 )

Ecommerce Plays a Larger Role in Back-to-School Purchases, Driven by Categories With Higher-Than-Average Penetration (ecommerce % of back-to-school retail sales, by school type, vs. ecommerce % of full-year retail sales, 2021-2025)Ecommerce Will Drive More Than 80% of YoY Dollar Growth (billions in US back-to-school physical retail vs. retail ecommerce sales, 2021-2025)

Full-Year Category Trends Offer Valuable Insights to Shape and Optimize Back-to-School Strategies (US product categories whose full-year sales performance will top the back-to-school average, 2025) Mass-Merchant Retailers Dominated 2024 Back-to-School Shopping Plans (% of US parents, May 2024)

US Parents Did Their Back-to-School Shopping Earlier in 2024 Than in 2023 (% of total spending on back-to-school products by US parents, by shopping period, 2023 & 2024 )The Desire to Spread Out Expenses Is Driving More Consumers to Start Back-to-School Shopping Earlier (% of US consumers who are doing back-to-school shopping early to spread out their budget, 2020-2024 )

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