Report: Walmart to Dominate Back-to-School Season While Amazon Backslides

Big box stores and mass-market retail are jockeying for the lead when it comes to the upcoming back-to-school shopping rush. But the nation’s largest retail chain is poised to outpace the competition, according to a recent report from Coresight Research.

A May survey of 514 shoppers with children ages five through 17 revealed that Walmart will dominate the season once again, with about 59 percent of shoppers favoring the multi-category retailer—a figure similar to last year. “Walmart is the leader in BTS shopping generally and outpaces every other retailer in terms of its share of in-store-only shoppers by quite some margin,” the report said.

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The 61-year-old retail chain recorded the same penetration of shoppers making $100,000 or more as Target, but Target’s appeal with consumers making less than $50,000 was significantly lower—less than half, in fact. Both retailers have a significant appeal for parents of young children, however.

Coresight’s research revealed other standouts. Old Navy is expected to claw back some market share, up 4 percent from 2023. More than 25 percent of shoppers surveyed said they would visit the Gap Inc.-owned lifestyle label, which jumped from sixth to fourth place in the ranking this year.

Higher-income consumers said they’re gravitating to American Eagle (15.2 percent) and Gap (12.7 percent)—“two less popular retailers in the context of BTS shopping.” The heritage brands rank in the top 15 retailers among consumers with six-figure household incomes.

Meanwhile, more than 2.5 times as many low-income as high-income consumers will visit Dollar Tree, Family Dollar and Dollar General for their BTS needs.

“Consumers appear to continue to favor the in-store channel for BTS shopping, despite the prevalence of online shopping and availability of all BTS products through online channels,” the report read. The BTS sales season tends to buck trends in this way, perhaps because parents shopping for clothing want to ensure that the duds fit their kids before purchasing.

And the propensity for in-person BTS shopping is only increasing. In 2024, more than 88 percent of consumers will shop in person for BTS products at physical stores—an increase of more than 10 percentage points from the year-ago period.

But the web is gaining ground even if families are heading back to malls and shopping centers. The gap between in-store and online shopping narrowed to just 3.7 percentage points, down from 8 percentage points last summer. More than 84 percent of consumers reported that they will shop online for BTS clothes and gear.

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In a real break with tradition, Amazon’s popularity is on the decline, showing a year-over-year BTS market share drop of more than 8 percent. According to Coresight, the web juggernaut is most popular with parents of middle school-aged kids, and there’s “a positive correlation with income for the proportions of BTS shoppers that plan to spend at Amazon.” Despite backsliding with lower income shoppers and likely losing out to other retailers with physical stores, Amazon unsurprisingly captures the largest share of online-only BTS shoppers (34.4 percent).

“Consumers appear to continue to favor the in-store channel for BTS shopping, despite the prevalence of online shopping and availability of all BTS products through online channels,” Coresight analyst Aditya Kaushik wrote. “However, our survey suggests that this year, it is online-only shoppers that are set to spend the most per child, also marking the largest year-over-year spending growth.” Online-only shoppers will spend the most per child ($348) compared to in-store only ($274).

“With more consumers expecting to shop in-store than last year and with higher spending set to take place through the online channel, omnichannel retailers are best placed to capitalize on BTS shopping behaviors and attract single-channel and omnichannel shoppers,” she added. “These retailers should ensure high availability of inventory both online and at stores.”