The Back-to-School Bonanza
Being Intentional - Motive's Bi-Weekly newsletter for Intentional Shoppers
It’s hard to believe that we’re quickly approaching back-to-school. With August literally around the corner, parents and children everywhere are getting ready for a return to in-person classrooms and relative normalcy. Here at Motive, our own children are finishing up summer camps and a lot of the discussion has turned to what the new year will bring (and reminders that summer reading still needs to be completed!). The memories of school shopping are still vivid in our mind—new shoes, new clothes, new backpacks filled with pencils, and three-ring binders. As much as we all hated the idea of summer ending, back-to-school shopping was always a highlight. It turns out that this year is no exception. In fact, according to the National Retail Federation, this year is likely to result in record-breaking back-to-school sales. In its July 19th, 2021 press release (here), the NRF states, “Total back-to-school spending is expected to reach a record $37.1 billion, up from $33.9 billion last year and an all-time high in the survey's history.” That’s a lot of billions, and with those billions comes the opportunity to really vote with your wallet. Today we’re going to take a look at how the beneficiaries of those back-to-school billions stack up.
As always, we are grateful to you, the readers of this newsletter, for all your support and encouragement. If there are areas you’d like to see covered please let us know in the comments below.
Taylor & Kai
If you’re one of the millions stocking up on back-to-school items think about shopping at Marshalls (RS: 22 | ↑ 78%), Target (RS: 15 | ↑ 65%), Kohl’s (RS: 12 | ↑ 60%) INSTEAD OF JC Penny’s (RS: -16 | ↓ 76%), Walmart (RS: -1 | ↓ 58%), or Costco(RS: 5 | — 50%).
Note: We’ve begun adding percentiles to the brand RealScore ticker so it’s easier to understand where a brand ranks in comparison to all other brands e.g. “↑ 65%” = “Better than 65% of all brands.”
Throughout this latest reporting period, people turned to Motive to learn more about the impacts of over 130 distinct brands operating across 37 different industry sectors. Of this diverse sample, eight brands stand out for having surpassed the critical interest threshold.
What is most interesting in this is that these leading brands mostly all hail from different industry sectors (with the exception of Porsche (RS: -7 | ↓ 74%) and Toyota (RS: 18 | ↑ 71%) which both operate in the Motor Vehicles sector). It would seem the interests of intentional shoppers are not limited to one, or only a few, industry sectors but rather are spread across all shopping behavior.
It wasn’t so long ago that brands assumed shoppers only cared to align their purchases with their values when buying food, clothing, and cosmetics. This is definitely not true now (if it was even ever true then!). Certain industries do continue to garner more interest than others, but it is becoming clearer that intentional consumers are demanding more transparency and more alignment from nearly all industry sectors...and this is what we are here for!
Have you ever seen this logo?
Next time you’re fish at the grocery store take a look at the box, or, better yet, look in your freezer and there’s a good chance you’ll see this logo. This is the logo for the Marine Stewardship Council.
The MSC is a certifying body that, in their own words, “encourages responsible fishing management and sustainable fishing practices to protect the future of fishing communities, preserve ocean ecosystems, and ensure seafood is available to everyone, always.”
What does it take to be certified by the MSC? From MSC’s website certification is achieved based on 3 areas of concern.
Sustainable fish stocks. There are enough fish left in the sea to reproduce so fishing can continue indefinitely.
Minimal environmental impact. Fishing operations must be carefully managed to maintain the structure, productivity, function, and diversity of the marine ecosystem.
Effective management. The fishery must comply with relevant laws and have a management system that allows it to respond quickly to changes in the status quo.
Most importantly, MSC certification requires third-party verification. At Motive, we view third-party verification as a requirement for a certification to be considered a positive indicator for a brand. Self-reporting, self-governed certifications are effectively meaningless.
MSC also requires a Chain of Custody for businesses using the MSC logo. This means that ALL products can be audited back to their origin. Chain of Custody is an important topic and we’ll talk more about Chain of Custody in future blog posts and newsletters.
From our blog:
Experts in Overthinking — Do you overthink your purchasing decisions? We certainly do! But overthinking becomes frustrating when you’re faced with nothing but greenwashed marketing campaigns. Learn how we cut through greenwashing to find the truth about brands.
Being Intentional Pays Off — It’s easy (too easy) to think that our choices have no impact. That these seemingly inconsequential purchases we make are nothing but a drop in an ocean. But, they MAKE A DIFFERENCE. This post illustrates the impact that we’re all making when we make intentional purchases.
From our Youtube Channel:
We are working to include certifications (like the MSC certification) in search results. This includes being able to search by brands based on their certification.
Soon we’ll be introducing preference customization. This means being able to create an account with Motive and being able to set scoring “weights” based on the issues that matter to you. This is a large update so we’ll be working on it for some time.