This Week In Etail: Back-to-School Specials

The Back-to-School season is in full swing. My daughter starts school next Monday, and this week's Sunday paper was littered with FSIs promoting back to school.

It's striking how different the paper design of an FSI is compared to a web site. I always new this (web vs. catalog for all retailers), but the images are even more contrasted in the office supply space. Staples website looks like a dictionary compared to their jump-out-at-you circular. OfficeMax.com looks like an indexed binder. I'm sure these sites serve them well, but I expect that the coming years will change how we can interact with sites with an enormous amount of SKUs.

Office Depot's idea of back to school was free pizza.

Wal-Mart added College 08 ad. Target added a text ad on the left navigation and a college tab to their top navigation. The Target FSI focused on college dorm furnishing.

Amazon was another focused a variety of college oriented themes. JC Penney addressed both college (dorm life) and apparel for school. They also have a very interesting video advergame.

The visuals follow. (You can click on any image to see full screen.)

Stores Magazine President's column focused on back-to-school this month.

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OfficeMax FSI