The Most Wonderful Time of Year -- 25 Years Later

It is the most wonderful time of year. They are going back to school.

Remember those lines along with the images of a father dancing around a Staples store while his moping kids look extremely sad. Eagerly, the father tosses back to school items in the shopping cart.

This ad that ran about 15 years ago to promote back to school for Staples was the high point of their existence. I remember everyone was still talking about that ad years after it ran and missed that kind of advertising. Quite frankly, from that point forward, it was all downhill for Staples from that point forward.

So what happened?

To understand, we have to turn the clock back in time. For me, that means turning the clock back 25 years ago. At that time, I was working at the mall at Woolworth. At that time, Woolworth was still a fairly successful company. That company along with Bradlees, Ann & Hope, Caldor, Ames, and others were the places that everyone shopped for back to school products. Target and Walmart were not even on the radar at the time.

However, a fairly new company named Staples broke in around the country in the mid 1990’s and took the back to school world by storm. One by one the above listed companies started going out of business as they could no longer compete against the newcomer. Around the same time, both Target and Walmart started penetrating many more areas of the country and started to make a name for themselves.

Back in the Woolworth days, much of the back to school items started arriving in March and April for the year. By the time, the first week of August arrived, all the back to school products were on the shelf. Nowadays, many stores start setting up for that time by the first week of July.

By many, it is considered an even more important time of year than Christmas. Back in the Woolworth days, it was so busy that it was not uncommon to run all 8 registers at the front of the store all at once and also have both the back registers running as well. Of course, this was when there were actually stores that the ordinary person would shop in unlike today where many of the stores are too upscale for many.

The back to school period was considered to be from late July through mid-September (depending on your viewpoint, it could have run through mid-October). It was during this period back in the Woolworth days that everyone who was entitled to a vacation took at least one week. There certainly was enough coverage to allow for it and it was actually encouraged to do so. Usually, I took my 2 weeks together to travel with the family. However, Staples would have none of that as no vacations could be taken in late July, August, and September. Add to this the blackout periods of late November, December, and early January, one would realize that there would not be much time for vacations. I shame Staples for such bad policies on this. Staples ended my summer vacations and also ended the family vacations along with other things.

As Staples was ramping up their back to school period, most of the other department stores were falling by the wayside as they could no longer compete against them. Eventually, Woolworth closed up shop just a short 18 months after I was let go.

Fast forward to about 5 years ago and now Staples is on the edge of collapse. Target and Walmart has been eating away at the once-dominant Staples’ back to school sales. According to surveys recently released, Walmart has the lowest prices by far with Staples coming in dead last for back to school prices. Forget those ads as the competitors will now match any of those ad prices so places like Walmart become one-stop shopping for everything.

As Staples’ empire continues to crumble, other types of stores have also emerged as back to school places to shop. Here is a partial list of those other places:

· Dollar stores -- Cheap products, but beware of cheap knockoffs that are defective. Similarly, Staples is known for defective store brand products and should be avoided. Don’t get too attached to any particular item as restocking of any item is very iffy.

· Warehouse clubs -- Sure, you can buy those 500 rolls of toilet paper there at a dirt cheap price, but occasionally you can find back to school items there as well especially if a family has multiple kids. Don’t expect much variety though.

· Salvage stores/bulk stores -- They may not have the most current items, but sometimes their prices are better than the competition. However, beware of possible damaged merchandise.

Now the places one should NEVER shop for back to school: your local drugstore such as CVS, Rite-Aid, and Walgreens. They not only are the most expensive, but by far have the least variety of any retailer. I used to cringe whenever some customer said they was going to go shopping for other back to school items that they couldn’t get at either Woolworth or Staples.

In summary, go take that Staples ad to either Walmart or Target and have them price match them. It is time to put Staples out of business as they put so many other retailers of the past out of business.

Then it would REALLY be the most wonderful time of the year.