Back-to-school shopping starts early as retailers launch July sales

Target opened its Target Circle Deal Days on June 23 and June 24-26, with early access for some members beginning June 22, offering up to 45% off back-to-school and college essentials. More than half of Target’s 2026 assortment was new this year.

Amazon, Walmart and Best Buy have also run July promotions, widening the runway for families trying to cover a long list of purchases without blowing their monthly budgets. Parents are weighing backpacks, electronics, pencil cases, lunch boxes and dorm gear more carefully this year, and many are moving sooner to catch discounts on the items their children actually need.

PwC found parents expect to spend an average of $922 on back-to-school shopping this year, up from last year’s level, and 47% expect to spend more than they did a year earlier, compared with 35% in the prior survey. Social media trends push some families toward branded water bottles and backpacks that circulate on TikTok and Instagram, even as they trim nonessential purchases elsewhere.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics put prices for educational books and supplies 9.4% higher in May 2025 than a year earlier, while food at elementary and secondary schools rose 3.3%.

Back-to-school and back-to-college spending reached about $128.2 billion in 2025, equal to roughly 2.3% of annual U.S. retail sales, according to the National Retail Federation. Sixty-seven percent of shoppers had already started buying by early July 2025, the highest early-shopping share since the NRF began tracking the trend in 2018.