Back to school 2024: the price of school supplies down by 1.5% on average according to professionals

The Association of Stationery and Office Manufacturers (AIPB) presented this Friday its traditional study on the costs of the start of the school year and in particular those related to the purchase of items that are part of everyday classroom life. First trends.

The time has come to go back to school. And with it, the inherent and incompressible expenses. The Association of Stationery and Office Manufacturers (AIPB) presented this Friday its traditional back-to-school study, carried out by the GfK firm, on the French and the first trends concerning the purchases of school supplies.

The study analyzes all sales made on August 23 in large-scale distribution and in specialized stores. “Prices are falling this back-to-school season, but this is not necessarily linked to the fact that families are buying cheaper products, explains Nadège Hélary, president of AIPB. It is mainly the fact that there is extremely strong promotional pressure from manufacturers and distributors.”

“A moderation on the prices charged”

The GfK study thus highlights the drop in prices through the level of sales at the checkout. As of August 25, these show a decrease of 1.5%, “which clearly indicates a moderation in prices practiced this year”in general”, comments Magali Saint-Laurent, from the GfK firm.”“This contrasts with previous years which had suffered the inflation effect”, she adds.

For its part, the Circana firm, which specializes in analyzing consumer trends, has also looked at the price of school supplies in mass retail. And this 2024 back-to-school season "looks to be softer than the previous two on the price front", according to Émily Mayer, Director of Studies.

"Prices remain much higher than three years ago"

"After an average inflation of 6% in 2022 and 9% in 2023 for stationery/writing, the time has come is in decompression with a deflation of 2% in 2024″, she explains. Certainly, she adds, “Prices remain much higher than 3 years ago, by around 13% on average with a peak for sheets at +29%, but let's not ignore this positive signal”.

According to Circana, the biggest easing is in stationery products, with a deflation of nearly 6% on notebooks and other diaries. Last July, the UFC-Que Choisir association published a study on this area based on the observation of the prices of 135 products (notebooks, sheets, felt-tip pens, pens, set squares, paints, etc.). It “showed a 1% decline in addition compared to July 2023”.

A context that “remains tense in budgetary terms”

But, here again, “this drop is far from cancelling out the inflation suffered last year, it was + 10% between July 2022 and July 2023”. “The context nevertheless remains tense in terms of budget”, adds Samuel Gimenez, from the GfK firm. The proof ? According to the latter, as of August 25, sales showed a decline in both volume and value, with, respectively, – 5.6 % and – 7 %.

UFC-Que choisir recalls that “the surge in the price of paper pulp in 2022 was the main reason given to explain this increase, which reached 14 % on paper mills in 2023". Since then, “this raw material essential for notebooks, sheets and binders has seen its price fall by 30%”. However, this decline “has not really been reflected in the school supplies section of supermarkets”. “While most national brand supplies are showing a slight increase (+1% on average compared to last year), distributor brands have started to fall by 3%”.