Local Businesses Look to Make the Grade

With less than a month before local kids walk, bike or bus to school, families are taking a detour to area businesses to stock up on essentials for their kids to achieve high marks.

At the same time, those stores are looking to reach even higher scores on their bottom lines.

Misty Gonzales, manager at Office Max, 70 Boston-Providence Highway in Walpole, said it’s around this time of year when foot traffic into the store increases.

And so far, so good.

“We’ve definitely seen it pick up a lot around this time,” Gonzales said. “Our promotions are meant to get people into the store, and they’re doing that."

She declined to say how her store was doing in terms of the number of people coming into the store, but said binders and “any type of writing instrument” are the biggest sellers thus far into the shopping season.

“It always helps when you’re fully staffed … we have limits on some of the items (people can buy),” Gonzales said.

Investors today are looking to see how well Wal-Mart Stores Inc. fares nationally before school officially begins next month and the season ends — until the holiday season, of course.

With sale items on typical school supplies advertised at the larger stores, those might draw more customers away from the smaller, local businesses. A manager at the Learning Well, 650 Washington St., who wished not to be named, seemed to hint at such sentiments. 

“We’re not doing very well,” the manager said. “Money is pretty tight.”

A comment on asked what the best stores are for back-to-school supplies and a reader said Walmart because of its prices.

Wherever one buys their supplies, it's only a matter a days before businesses can ring in sales.