Bloomberg Surveillance · Wednesday, July 29, 2026
While overall back-to-school spending is projected to increase by 6%, this figure masks a significant divergence in consumer behavior. A few consumers are spending more by cutting back elsewhere, while a larger group is maintaining spending levels, and a smaller segment is spending less.
“Back to school is still a thing, and the headline number is a school spend is up six percent. But the way that I think about is you really have to unpack that, and the devil's in the detail. The average says the consumer is going to be spending more. But if I look at ten consumers and how they're thinking about it, you have basically four of those consumers are going to spend more, four of those consumers are going to spend about the same, and two of them are going to spend a little bit less, and that all nets out to about six percent.”
“So it's really interesting to see that of those consumers there really is a discrepancy across the mix.”