Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Stephanie Duncan had barely finished handing out report cards when the Toronto teacher settled back in a Cineplex cinema to take in the comedy Bruno - only to get a jarring reminder of the classrooms she had just left behind.
Before the movie began, a commercial appeared from retail giant Wal-Mart Canada Corp. touting laptops for the return to school. "Heading back to the classroom is probably the farthest thing from your mind," a tech expert in the spot tells viewers. "But believe it or not, now's the time to start thinking about what kind of laptop you need for back-to-school."
Ms. Duncan, 30, thought that blasting the message at the beginning of July was a little early.
"We look forward to our break and the first thing you know you're bombarded with September," she said recently as she strode past the prominent back-to-school aisles at the front of a Wal-Mart store.
She may not be buying into the early message, but Wal-Mart and other retailers are betting that other consumers will take the bait. Merchants feel the heat to get a jump on the back-to-school season - it's the second-biggest shopping period after Christmas and, according to U.S. data, about one-10th its size in sales.
Having struggled through one of the toughest downturns in decades, retailers' prospects aren't much brighter for that all-important holiday business to come. So they're rushing to not only stock their back-to-school aisles, but also find novel ways to grab consumers' attention.
For the first time, many stores are tapping into social media to speak directly to youngsters with ads and contests on Facebook and Twitter. And almost all retailers are trying to seal the deal with more promotions and discounts than ever before.
But already the prognosis isn't rosy for Canada's retailers.
Sales in the estimated $2-billion annual back-to-school market are expected to slip between 2 and 3 per cent, according to forecasts from Staples Canada, the school supplies retail titan, and market researcher Trendex North America, which tracks apparel sales in Canada.
And the attempt to spur sales so early in the season could backfire, observers warn. Consumers are increasingly delaying purchases and waiting for better deals, as they do for holiday shopping, said John Williams of retail consultancy J.C. Williams Group.
"With the economy the way it is, people buy closer to the time that they need the products," he said.
Wal-Mart, nevertheless, thinks it can change shoppers' behaviour and boost business. Its back-to-school commercial in July marked its earliest start to the campus season and its first foray into cinema advertising, said Jeff Lobb, vice-president of marketing at the discounter.
In the past, its marketing began about a month later, closer to early August. But Wal-Mart's movie theatre ad focuses on laptops, and consumers need more time to research such a big-ticket purchase, Mr. Lobb said. Cinemas, a popular destination in tough economic times, offer a captive audience. "We wanted to be out there first, and we think we were."
Wal-Mart is among retailers trumpeting a wider range of back-to-school products for students university-aged and younger, including a full offering of electronics. To back the effort, it started distributing catalogues to families with children in those age brackets, including shopping lists for how to dress up a dorm room.
Its research found that a mother makes nine trips to three separate retailers in the eight weeks around the start of school; Wal-Mart wants to shrink the metrics to just one trip to one chain - its own. "We know how consumers are behaving and we know we can provide them with a solution," Mr. Lobb said.
Rival discounter Zellers rolled out its offerings of notebooks and knapsacks in the third week of July, a week earlier than usual, in a bid to draw recession-weary consumers, said chief executive officer Mark Foote.
"I'm not saying we think it's an easy season," he added. "I don't want to diminish it. But we feel pretty good about our position in it."
Other retailers are getting a jump on back-to-school time by using social media to court the often-ignored teen shopper. Electronics chain Best Buy Canada launched a Twitter account three weeks ago, offering deals that aren't advertised elsewhere, spokesman Christopher Bennett said.
Sister chain Future Shop is rolling out a contest using Facebook and Twitter as well as traditional advertising such as flyers for prizes that include a $10,000 shopping spree. "We're utilizing more tools in our tool belt this year," said Nikki Hellyer, Future Shop's director of marketing.
And U.S.-based Staples Inc., which created a Facebook page in June, showed its new back-to-school commercial on the page in mid-July before the ad aired on television.
The bottom line is that belt-tightening consumers are looking for savings, retailers say.
Staples is teaming up with clothier Old Navy, offering discounts on its apparel with a purchase at the office supplies chain. The move is aimed at taking on Wal-Mart, which has an edge by drawing customers with clothing and supplies under one roof, said Pete Gibel, vice-president of merchandise at Staples.
Best Buy expects that as much as 60 per cent of its back-to-school sales will be tied to a promotion or price markdown, compared with closer to 50 per cent a year earlier, Mr. Bennett said. Zellers, meanwhile, has dropped prices on "thousands" of products in its 278 stores, part of its wider recovery strategy, Mr. Foote said.
Despite predictions of an overall drop in the back-to-school market, the big retailers such as Wal-Mart are bullish their efforts will yield gains, even if margins may be pinched. They've bolstered their inventory levels accordingly. Staples projects its sales will rise 2 to 3 per cent, mainly by stealing customers from smaller rivals, Mr. Gibel said.
Still, Ms. Duncan isn't rushing out to do her own back-to-school shopping. And the teacher plans to scale back her spending of $200 last year by about 10 per cent. "It's down to the basics."