Tag Archives: school supplies

U.S. retailers scramble to stock shelves as kids head back to school

By Lisa Baertlein and Joyce Philippe

LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK (Reuters) -At Stationery and Toy World, a family-owned shop in New York’s Upper West Side, manager Gary Rowe is having difficulty getting all the pens and folders he ordered for the important back-to-school season.

His usual vendors have low stocks of Pilot’s erasable FriXion pens and Paper Mate Flair marker pens – and prices are high on stationery and other in-demand school supplies.

And Rowe is not alone, retailers are navigating a storm of challenges – higher production costs, cargo delays from China and other Asian countries, and sky-high shipping rates – as they gear up for the industry’s second-biggest selling season.

“I’m hoping that when everything catches up, we get more stock,” Rowe said at his store packed wall-to-wall with a colorful array of pens and markers. “Business has been really slow.”

After a year of keeping their kids at home, parents are eager for classes to start again.

Stimulus checks and advance child tax credits from U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration are expected to boost sales of back-to-school merchandise, especially shoes and clothing, following last year’s outlays on laptops, headphones and other equipment for remote learning. The National Retail Federation expects total back-to-school spending to rise 6.4% to $108.1 billion this year. Average spending for all age groups is forecast to be $2,049, up 10.8%.

But following retailers’ moves to prune inventories, shoppers may find fewer discounts, smaller markdowns and less merchandise in stores. Retailers “just don’t know how much to stock,” said Stacy DeBroff, founder of marketing data firm Influence Central, which works with retailers such as JCPenney, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Skechers. “There continues to be lingering supply-side issues because manufacturing was done abroad,” DeBroff said. JCPenney, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Skechers declined to comment on inventory.

Some – most likely bigger retailers – will have stored away backpacks and other products from last year that did not sell, said Matt Kramer, KPMG’s consumer and retail national sector leader. “I think they’re being very careful about giving further discounts as their inventory starts to dwindle,” Kramer said.

Macy’s worked to bring in denim clothes, school uniforms and small electronics, Chief Financial Officer Adrian Mitchell said at a recent investor conference. “We believe it’s better to potentially lose a sale due to the lack of supply than to over buy and have markdown merchandise at higher rates,” Mitchell said.

Target started putting backpacks on its sales floors much earlier this year, around the end of May, a month or more earlier than usual, data firm StyleSage said. Target told Reuters the introduction was inline with other years, and that it is working with partners to manage and move inventory faster than ever.

“We’re still moving backpacks and crayons,” said Brett Rose, chief executive officer at United National Consumer Suppliers, a wholesale distributor whose retail clients include Walmart’s Sam’s Club, Amazon and Five Below.

Rose said he is usually finished bringing such products in by May or June – at the latest.

During the second quarter, retailers imported lower volumes of popular back-to-school items compared with the same period in 2019, before the pandemic, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence’s trade data firm Panjiva. For instance, retailers’ imports of backpacks, up 9.8% versus the second quarter of 2020, were 15.2% lower than the same period in 2019, Panjiva said. Imports of kids’ shoes and clothing, up 64.4% versus 2020, were 12.6% below the amount imported during the same period in 2019.

Overall, retailers so far have marked down a smaller proportion of backpacks, and discounts are smaller on average, according to the data firm StyleSage. It sees similar patterns in other clothing categories.

Experts say back-to-school may offer a preview of what to expect at Christmastime as retailers pare offerings to limit risk.

(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein and Joyce Philippe; Additional reporting by Richa Naidu in Chicago; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Steve Orlofsky)

Classrooms near empty as school starts in crisis-stricken Venezuela

A teacher stands next to a billboard that reads "Welcome to classes" and empty desks in a classroom on the first day of school, in Caucagua, Venezuela September 17, 2018. REUTERS/Marco Bello

By Brian Ellsworth and Vivian Sequera

CAUCAGUA, Venezuela (Reuters) – Venezuela’s school year began on Monday with few students arriving in classrooms amid a crippling economic crisis that has left many families unable to afford supplies or provide their children with enough food to focus on schoolwork.

The OPEC nation is collapsing under low oil prices and an unraveling socialist economic system, leaving millions struggling to eat and hundreds of thousands streaming into neighboring countries in search of better conditions.

Though classes often take several weeks to get into full swing, teachers said the absenteeism was significantly more notable this year.

In the poor, rural town of Caucagua about 75 kilometers (47 miles) from Caracas, only three students had arrived at the Miguel Acevedo Educational Unit, a public elementary school that has 65 students registered, according to principal Nereida Veliz.

School performance “is quite low because children are not coming to class” said Veliz in the small schoolhouse where the power is out and running water only works three days a week. Students generally come to receive state-sponsored meals.

“They do not eat at home, they eat here,” she said.

The Education Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Education Minister Aristobulo Isturiz on Friday said classes would start this week for 7.6 million students at 30,000 schools around the country, a figure that includes 5,000 private schools.

Venezuela’s hyperinflationary collapse has left pencils, books, and uniforms out of the reach of the average citizen.

A steady decay of public transportation has become a growing limitation on activities ranging from delivering products to taking children to school.

“I made a huge effort to bring my son to school. Part of his uniform is from last year and from his brother’s things,” said Omaira Bracho, 50, in the coastal city of Punto Fijo in the state of Falcon. “I found shoes on sale. The hardest thing is the school supplies.”

President Nicolas Maduro says the country is victim of an “economic war” led by U.S-backed political adversaries.

In the border state of Tachira, Javier Tarazona of the state teachers’ association said classes had not started due to problems including lack of power, inadequate sanitation, and insufficient food.

At the Benedicto Marmol school in Punto Fijo, only three of 365 students showed up on Monday, according to Falcon state teachers’ union representative Mari Garcia.

“There are always a lot of children missing at the beginning of the class, but it has never been so noticeable,” she said.

(Additional reporting by Mircely Guanipa in Punto Fijo and Anggy Polanco in San Cristobal; Editing by Alexandra Ulmer and Andrea Ricci)

Most U.S. teachers spend own money on school supplies: survey

FILE PHOTO: Teachers rally outside the state Capitol on the second day of a teacher walkout to demand higher pay and more funding for education in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S., April 3, 2018. REUTERS/Nick Oxford/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Ninety-four percent of U.S. public school teachers spend their own money on classroom supplies without reimbursement, according to a Department of Education survey on Tuesday that follows protests by educators who are asking for more pay and funding.

Teachers in the 2014-15 school year on average spent $479 out of their own pockets on such supplies as chalk, pencils and construction paper, while about 7 percent spent more than $1,000, the report by the department’s National Center for Education Statistics said.

Spending was more common in high-poverty schools than in wealthier ones, the survey showed. Just over half of U.S. public school students are eligible for the free lunch program, which is seen as a marker for poverty.

The study follows walkouts by teachers in West Virginia, Kentucky and Oklahoma seeking better pay, benefits and funding. After the biggest teachers’ strike in U.S. history, Arizona’s governor last week signed a budget bill that will boost pay by 20 percent.

In North Carolina, thousands of teachers are expected to rally on Wednesday in Raleigh, the state capital, to seek more school funding from lawmakers.

A 2002 law allows teachers to deduct up to $250 from their U.S. taxes for unreimbursed spending on classroom materials. Legislation introduced by Representative Anthony Brown, a Maryland Democrat, and 35 co-sponsors would double the deduction and index it to inflation.

The average U.S. teacher earned $56,383 in the 2012-13 school year, marking a 1.3 percent drop from the turn of the millennium, Education Department statistics show.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said walkouts by teachers should not be necessary to address lack of spending on public education.

“There is no other job I know of where the workers subsidize what should be a cost borne by an employer as a necessary ingredient of the job,” she said in a statement.

The Education Department said the study was based on a nationally representative sample of public schools, teachers and principals in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; editing by Diane Craft)