Peek into a kid’s school bag

If a ladies hand bag is “Pandora’s Box” where she stashes all her secrets, then a child’s school bag is no less. The variety of items in a kid’s bag has increased manifold as they have become more brand conscious now. They know their brands and flaunt them too.

An interesting study was made by Market Pulse throwing light on the changes appeared in the school bag and what goes into it. After dividing the students into four groups according to their classes, Market Pulse surveyed a set of 120 school-going children in Delhi-NCR and quite literally took a peek into their bags. And this study reveals some quite interesting facts.

Writing Instruments

Usage of ball pens increased with age. 81% of senior school students had ball pens while 69% of middle school students had ball pens. Gel pens were most popular with middle school students; 78% had the same as opposed to 58% of the senior school students. Reynolds, Cello & Rotomac were the most liked brands in Ball & Gel pens. Roller/ Fluid ink pens were found only with middle & senior school students. 25% senior school students had them. Trimax by Reynolds & Uniball were the most popular ones. Only middle school students had fountain pens while 2% of the kids had mechanical pencils.

Scholastic Range (includes notebooks, geometry boxes, etc.)

Camlin and Classmate were the most popular geometry box brands. Usage of registers increases with age; hence, 94% of the senior school students had them while junior and middle school students largely had copies. On an average, middle and senior school students had 4-6 registers and  6-8 copies in their bags. Junior school students had 2 registers and  7-8 copies while playgroup children just had 2 copies. Local and regional brands were prominent in the notebooks category. Among organized players, Classmate, Schoolmate notebooks were found with students.

Art Stationery

Wax and Oil pastel crayons were prominently present in bags while plastic crayons were negligible except in the middle school. Popular crayon brands included Camlin, Colorama and Faber Castel. 44% middle school students had water colours – much higher incidence than among others. Paint brands included Camlin, Rangeela Tempara and Pidilite. A higher % of middle school students had colour pencils and sketch pens in their bags. Popular colour pencil brands were Camlin, Natraj and Faber Castel. Sketch Pen brands included Stic, Linc, Camlin, Faber Castel and Luxor

Office Stationery (includes Gluesticks, Markers, Highlighters)

Surprisingly, Market Pulse found that a lot of the students had products that are classified as ‘office stationery’ in their bags. 69% and  53% senior and middle school students respectively, carried glue-sticks. Fevistick and Kores were the common brands. 41% of the middle school students had permanent markers in their bags while a sizable number of them had highlighters in their bags too. Camlin, Luxor, Reynolds permanent markers were present while Faber Castel highlighters were being used. The other varieties of markers – White, Paint, CD-OHP, Chisel and Bold were present in small numbers too!

Other Products in the School Bags

Erasers, Rulers, Sharpeners, Tiffin box, water bottle, calculators etc. were found in the school bags. Calculators were present in 14% of the senior school students’ bag - that too in class 11^th and 12^th students. Erasers were present in most of the school bags. Natraj, Apsara and DOMS were the popular eraser brands. The middle & senior class students also had rulers. Additional things found in bags were mobile phones, house keys, combs, A4 sheets, adhesive tape and staplers.

Thus, Market Pulse happily concludes that with the growing awareness and brand consciousness among the consumers, opportunity is endless for the Stationery brands to cash on.