Price Hikes For Back To School Supplies

Dan:
And we’re back just like the Game of Thrones prequel, and Lord of the rings that’s coming out soon and JLo and Ben Affleck, like all good times. I’m Dan Magida alongside will Davis. What’s going on?

Will:
Did you know Ben Affleck is fluent in Spanish?

Dan:
I did not know. That is how, how do you know that? Just from his active roles or did he live there?

Will:
He went, went to Mexico city of like, I think when he was 13 to like film a movie and then he was like in school there and then like picked it up, was traveling around. That’s kinda cool. And I saw a meme of him speaking Spanish, and then I went down rabbit hole for a second. So yeah, he speaks Spanish.

Dan:
Well, you know, also where you can learn Spanish is it’s back to school season or for some people that are already back in school. Yeah.

Will:
Depends on where you are. You’re either about to go you’re there for a week or two, but yeah, back to school, we are back

Dan:
And

Will:
I can’t wait.

Dan:
I know you got two kids in school now I’m gonna put you on the spot here. Cause I’ve seen this trending a little bit and this mm-hmm takes me back to those days. The four colors for math, science, English, and history. What colors closely align with each one? You know what the, but the folders or the notebooks or the book coverings, even though I went brown bag, not the colored stuff.

Will:
Yeah. So you’re saying what colors are? Math, science, history

Dan:
And English.

Will:
Okay. So I’m going with red for math.

Dan:
Okay.

Will:
I’m going with green for science.

Dan:
Makes sense.

Will:
I think I’m going with yellow for history.

Dan:
Yep.

Will:
And I’m going with blue for English.

Dan:
See, I differ with you with math in, in English. I, I go blue for math, red for English. I think that’s just because English was not my favorite subject in high school now was

Will:
I right? Was I, did I get all four?

Dan:
So yeah, so the everyone’s pretty unanimous on science is green, which makes sense. Right. And history is, is yellow. People can flip math and English.

Will:
Yeah. I, I would be okay with either one. I was about to say purple, but I was like, there’s no way purple made the cut. Yeah.

Dan:
Well, as we head back to school, according to the national retail Federation, you’ll see many companies with Federation at the end of it, but national re

Will:
The retailers, they decided they’re a Federation.

Dan:
Yeah. They’re a Federation. Sounds like a governing body that families with children, like you will in elementary, through high school plan to spend an average of $864 this year on school supplies up 168 more than they referenced 2019. That’s a lot of school supplies.

Will:
Yeah.

Dan:
Now I know, I know clothing because you know, you’re away for three months, gross spurts and, and everything. Right. but school supplies like thought everything’s more electronic these days.

Will:
And things are definitely all electronic for like elementary school kids. I am joking. They they’re not I think predominantly it’s probably based on clothes. Like a lot of it is the close side of things. You know, we were going through and you know, it’s not as big of an issue because of the, to the school that the kids go to, like they wear uniforms. And so you’re just really, you’re getting the uniforms and there’s not as much thought into it. Yep. but yeah, I mean, and with inflation, you know, when you wanna get things set up, now there’s a lot more interactive things like the back to school list is kind of daunting. When you take a look at it, it’s like a couple pages.

Dan:
Like what do you, what do people need these days? Like, what’s what you have you gone to the stores? Like what’s six, like notebooks. I mean, I don’t know what they cost these days, but binders, pens and pencils. Aren’t that

Will:
Is, yeah. But I mean, there’s also like you need like headphones for some of the interactive stuff you need. Like you’re a lot of times you’re being asked, like to bring like some of the cleaning supplies to have as well, like for your desk area and whatnot. I think when you start, you know, you get three pair, you know, two or three pairs of shoes, depending on what it is, you know, that’s like 150, 120 bucks

Dan:
Back packs,

Will:
Huh. Backpacks,

Dan:
But you can use the same backpack.

Will:
And then the sh yeah, I think clothes probably makes up like anywhere from like three fists to, you know, a quarter half, depending on what it is, it’s it starts telling up.

Dan:
Yeah. So I guess, I mean, this is also, you know, inflationary reasons that these prices are increasing also just due to supply bottlenecks in the supply chain, which sure. Definitely play, play a role in there, but what can you do? It’s one of those things where like, it’s hard to probably offset these expenses because your child needs these for school.

Will:
Right.

Dan:
But then I wonder how like these retail companies, like, are they just doing this to boost their profits for the next quarter, since they’ve had some tough times with inventory, it’s, it’s one of those things, how do you prepare for back to school? Cause that’s a staple every year and there’s always deals happening, but are there deals happening this year? Well,

Will:
I think that’s the thing that, you know, when you look at it from the business side on the retailer piece you know, this is, they can bank on this. Like it’s back to school is the same as Christmas. It’s the same as Valentine’s, as you know, there’s, I’m gonna say seasonality to it and that it comes around every part of the season. And at this point they kind of have things like pretty down pat versus, you know, where take for a target. For example, they had a really rough reporting piece recently on, you know, from a stop perspective because they talked about the excess inventory they had, which they had to discount things down for like home items, home decor some of the traditional things that like they stocked up on from a pandemic perspective and ultimately needed to move through. So I think when people are ordering these things from an inventory perspective, they have an idea of what they know is going to move.

Will:
And so they’re not like this they’re, they’re pretty good at it. Versus, you know, when you think about it from the personal side, from a supply chain piece, if you’re looking at things, you know, a lot of families deem these essentials, so they have to they’re, they’re going to get them. They have to get them, you know, where’s ultimately the best place to do it. You know, other times like you can look, Hey, are you buying in bulk? And you’re trying to set up from there depending on what it is. But that’s the big, I think that’s the big thought from a retailer piece is that I don’t think this is competing with some of that inventory because it’s, so it it’s planned ahead of time. They know where they’re getting from, et cetera, you know, they’ve, they’ve just had to move out these and mark down these items that aren’t moving or working with liquidators or people that are taking things off hand in order to, you know, get their warehouses and inventory in a good place.

Dan:
I, but I don’t think I was anywhere close to $864 on school supplies.

Will:
You supplies like, like your, like your parents, like with you from school supplies.

Dan:
Yeah. Nowhere close.

Will:
I’m gonna say there’s a range, right? Cause like, obviously with inflation and time, like things have like gotten higher from there. Like if I’m on the range, I would say I was probably like closer to the lower middle side of the range. I definitely like when you saw the kids, like some of the kids like coming into school, you’re like, whoa, new wardrobe, new backpack.

Dan:
I think I got the same backpack for eight years.

Will:
Jansport.

Dan:
Oh yeah.

Will:
There you go.

Dan:
You know, it starts out with LL Bean and then it goes a Jansport.

Will:
Yeah. listen, I think, you know, what we wanna hear from is that people need to write us at hello@anvyl.com.

Dan:
Back to school photos,

Will:
Please send us a back to school, photo that from you at whatever point in time, we’d love to see it. Number one or two. Tell us what backpacks you were rocking back in the day. You know, were you a jam sport person? Did you have your initials on it? Were you rocking a, you know, graphic backpack that some did? Did you have a metal lunchbox container paper bag? Nice. We nice. You know, I want to know right now fins got a, you know, they, I’ve got a star wars backpack, and then Leo’s got a minions backpack.

Dan:
I don’t even know what we’re talking about anymore, but every go watch Billy Madison and back to school.

Will:
Yeah. so we wanna know number one and if you’re seeing things right now, if it’s hard to get at the store, also let us know cuz right now we think that the stores do very well in terms of back to school. If you need to back to school, Adam, you’re gonna find it. Yeah. And if you’re a mom and dad out there and you’re thinking about investing in like a really pricey calculator, don’t worry about it unless you’re in calculus and you need a graphing calculator, just stick with PI 86. Anyway, reach out to us, love to hear from you. And we will talk you next episode.