by Doug Desjardins
While families will spend most of their back-to-school budget on apparel this year, the amount they spend on electronics won’t be far behind.
According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), parents are expected to spend an average of $181.60 this year on electronics and computer-related products, second only to apparel ($225.47). For college students, electronics will be the top category once again, with spending expected to reach $236.94, down from an all-time high of $266 last year but still well ahead of all other categories--including apparel. 
With that in mind, both mass merchants and electronics specialty retailers are vying for a bigger share of the market with an emphasis on hot new products and affordable staples. That’s certainly the case with the iPad, this year’s “must-have” product that gives students an easy way to take notes in class, do research, read books online and show off a status symbol.
“It’s certainly going to hit colleges and I think it will hit high schools too,” said Jim Severyn of Kurt Salmon Associates. “It will be the gadget to have and it will catch on very quickly.” The only downside to the iPad is a price tag that’s still around $500.
For students looking for more traditional options, Best Buy has a slate of laptops under its Blue Label banner from Dell, Sony and Toshiba. The lower-priced laptops are designed for students and equipped with Microsoft Office and more durable batteries.
“Anybody who’s in school uses Microsoft Office in some way – whether it’s Word, Excel or Powerpoint – so to have it preloaded is a big plus,” said Best Buy store manager Sam Helmick.
Wal-Mart is looking to attract students looking for bargains with its Acer notebook for $248, a small, portable device that doesn’t have much memory but is suitable for the needs of students taking notes and writing reports.
Smartphones, including the iPhone, are also expected to be popular items for high school and college students heading back to school, even if it means giving up on other items in order to afford them. “The consumer is willing to pay for popular products even if they are expensive,” said Van Baker, vice president of research for Industries at Gartner, a technology research firm. “This is evidenced by Apple’s recent results, which were very strong.”
That trend may favor specialty retailers like Best Buy over Wal-Mart and other mass merchants who offer lower prices on budget items but don’t always stock what people are looking for.
“The big wrinkle is that the three main discounters offer more commodity-based products than Best Buy,” said Joe Feldman, senior retail analyst at Telsey Advisory Group. “Best Buy has a better offering that caters to a more upscale crowd. So just because trends have been weak at discounters doesn’t mean they’re going to be weak at Best Buy.”
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More Households will Shop Online for Back to School Goods This Year
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