NumBytes 51: Back To School Half Done

The National Retail Federation estimated that total spending for Back to School -- and Back to College -- will be $68 billion. That's a lot of pencils and books for the year -- teachers' dirty looks remain complimentary (unless you consider parents' tax bills).

According to NRF’s 2011 Back-to-School survey of 8,632 consumers conducted from August 2-9, 2011 by BIGresearch, the average family completed 43.0% of shopping for K-12 students at this point in August, similar to last year’s 43.2%. College students and their parents completed 44.3% of their shopping, up slightly from last year’s 43.1%.

The survey noted 56.9% of last-minute shoppers plan to shop in discount retailers, 47.1% will visit department stores (up from last year’s 42.7%), 40.8% plan to visit specialty clothing stores (up from 34.3%), and 21.7% plan to shop online (up from 16.0%).

For K-12 students, 43.4% of parents said they would purchase at least one character item, with Disney’s Cars and Star Wars taking the top slots for boys and Dora the Explorer and Hello Kitty at the top of the list for girls.