As the spring days pass by, the back-to-school season is approaching, bringing fantastic opportunities to help your business earn an A+! To help you prepare your shop and boost your back-to-school sales, we’ve curated over 35 must-have back-to-school printables you won’t want to miss. 🍎📚✨
Whether you decide to sell them as printables or use our resources to create custom products, you’ll make this back-to-school season your best one yet! Ready to access our product and design tips? Let’s get on point. 😊✏️
35+ Back-To-School Printables
First Things First
When Is Back to School This Year?
In the United States, the back-to-school season doesn’t fall on a specific date; it varies yearly and among states. Generally, it starts in early August in the southern states and goes until early September in the northern states.
When to Prepare Your Store?
Aim to have your store, products, and back-to-school printables ready by late June to be fully prepared. This is especially important if you plan to sell nationwide rather than just locally.
Back-To-School Statistics
According to the National Retail Federation (NRF) in 2023:
- Back-to-school spending in the US reached a staggering $41.5 billion, a significant increase from the previous year’s $36.9 billion and 2021’s $37.1 billion. This data from the National Retail Federation (NRF) underscores the importance of the back-to-school season as a key consumer occasion, presenting a lucrative opportunity for your business. Plus, over half (55%) of consumers were already shopping for back-to-school items by early July.
- 53% of shoppers made their last back-to-school purchases one or two weeks before school started.
- In 2023, the average family spent $890.07 on back-to-school items, $25 more than in 2022, and this number is expected to keep rising. However, despite spending more, consumers are looking for the best deals.
- 43% of those spending more than last year said it’s because they need more new items, up from 32% last year.
According to Oberlo:
- The favorite channel for buying school supplies is online, which gives you an advantage in selling back-to-school printables. 😉
- Additionally, more than half (55%) of all back-to-school buyers plan to purchase their supplies online. (A golden opportunity for sure).
Why Is It a Good Idea to Sell Back-To-School Printables?
The back-to-school season is a time of profitable growth, with people eagerly investing in school supplies. With many shoppers preferring to buy online, this is the perfect opportunity for you to sell back-to-school printables and maximize your back-to-school sales potential! 📚✨
Here are our favorite reasons why you need to sell these printables:
High Demand
The back-to-school season is super popular right after the winter holidays. Parents, teachers, and students are all on the lookout for fun and educational printables to make the new school year exciting and organized.
Low Cost
Digital printables are easy to customize and have minimal production costs. If you have a Placeit by Envato subscription, you can download unlimited assets, making it even easier! Plus, you can sell these printables repeatedly without extra expenses.
Convenience
Back-to-school printables offer the ultimate convenience of online shopping. With instant downloads available anytime, anywhere, you can ensure a hassle-free customer experience. This means happy customers and stress-free sales for you! 🌟
Sales Growth
By offering back-to-school printables as digital downloads or unique print-on-demand products like custom notebooks and stickers, you have the potential to double your revenue. Remember, people are willing to pay more for personalized items! According to the 2024 Etsy Seller Handbook, searches for personalized gifts increased by 175% year-over-year. This is an exciting opportunity to boost your online shop and see your sales soar! ✨
🧸🚀 You might like reading the Best Personalized Gifts for Kids!
In a Nutshell?
Back-to-school printables offer a golden opportunity with their low cost, high demand, and versatility. By offering both digital downloads and POD products, it’s possible to reach a broader audience and elevate your revenue. No worries about production or shipping—just design with Placeit and watch your sales increase! 🚀
Doing this ensures your business meets diverse customer needs, encourages purchases, and shines brightly in the competitive back-to-school market. 🌟📚
1. Calendars
Type: Organizational Back-To-School Printables
Best Use
Our calendar design templates are perfect for selling as digital downloads, so your customers can print them in minutes! The best part is that you can use the same template over and over by customizing it endlessly or adapting it for different niches. ✏️
If you’re selling calendars via print-on-demand, just remember that you can only customize the image for each month, not each calendar’s layout or style.
Design Tips
- Our friendly online editor makes it a breeze to customize your back-to-school printable calendars. You can select from various themes, such as animals, fruits, back-to-school elements, you name it. You can also upload your files or use our free assets library. This flexibility allows you to create unique and stunning printable calendars that your customers will love.
- Additionally, we recommend using light colors and subtle backgrounds to help your customers save on ink. Soft pastel colors work best. ✨
- If you want to give a seasonal theme to your back-to-school printable calendars, you might like taking our t-shirt ideas calendar as a source of inspiration.
Product Tips
- Create a calendar for each month of the year and allow your customers to start on Monday or Sunday.
- Offer A4 or letter size, which are the most common ones regarding printable calendars.
- Upload an image that clearly shows what the printable calendar includes. For example, list the details like this: Four PDF files: letter size (Sunday start), letter size (Monday start), A4 size (Monday start), and A4 size (Sunday start). Also, the dimensions should be included in both centimeters and inches to help customers understand the size differences.
- Provide the final calendar file in both PDF and PNG formats, allowing customers to choose the best format for printing.
- Clearly state that this item is a digital download ready to be printed at home. Make sure customers understand that no physical item will be shipped.
- Finally, while horizontal orientation is the most common, consider offering vertical options as well.
2. To-Do Lists
Type: Organizational Back-To-School Printables
Best Use
This back-to-school printable works best as a digital download! People can easily buy and print them to write down all the activities they want to accomplish in a day. ✨
Design Tips
- Keep the design simple and uncluttered. For instance, you could use a vibrant background for a to-do list but ensure clarity by organizing the list into clean, blank squares for each section.
- Balance the colors by applying them selectively to headers or specific sections. Additionally, consider offering a variety of color schemes so customers receive all options with their purchase. 🤑
Product Tips
- Create a variety of to-do lists tailored to different audiences, such as parents, university students, and teachers.
- Sell individual to-do lists or create bundles with various designs to meet the specific needs of your niches.
- Include printables for daily, weekly, and monthly to-do lists.
- Ensure the note-taking space is sufficiently large, typically A4 or letter size, to allow for clear and readable writing.
- Leave margins to accommodate hole-punching, binding, or stapling.
- PDFs are the best format for back-to-school printables. With Placeit, your to-do list file will be available in PNG. However, you can download it as a PDF by clicking My Downloads and the dropdown arrow next to each file’s download button.
😊✏️ Pro tip: Looking for a similar product? Browse our habit tracker and grocery list design templates to sell online or complement these back-to-school printables.
3. Planners
Type: Organizational Back-To-School Printables
Best Use
Planners are best sold as digital downloads (as they can’t be fully customized via print-on-demand). They’re also ideal for selling as individual pages or small bundles, as they offer flexibility and convenience for users looking to get organized for the new school year.
Design Tips
- Planners usually have various sections, so pay attention to color distribution and pick a theme color palette. For example, if a printable planner has a blue heading and blue notes section, you can replace these colors with your chosen palette to maintain a cohesive look.
- Use a color scheme that is attractive to your audience. For instance, bright and playful for younger students, muted and sophisticated for older students and teachers.
- Allow personalization with names, subjects, and schedules. With your Placeit subscription, this is easier than ever!
- Incorporate relevant graphics like school supplies, motivational icons, or seasonal themes. 😉
Product Tips
- Create daily, weekly, and monthly planners (for every need), but always ensure ample space for notes and tasks with clearly delimited sections.
- Tailor planners to different sub-niches. For example, a university student planner might include sections like dates, assignments, homework, class schedules, reminders, and exams. In contrast, a teacher’s planner might prioritize important deadlines, ideas, notes, meetings, student birthdays, and goals. So, customization is vital to meeting diverse needs.
- Additionally, to boost your sales and stay ahead of competitors, consider offering additional elements like stickers, bookmarks, a cover, a monthly calendar, a weekly planner, a mood tracker, a budget planner, and notes.
- Utilize our bundle designs to ensure all your materials look cohesive and coherent.
- Provide buyers with guidelines for printing their new back-to-school printable planners on durable paper to ensure they last longer.
🚀🤓 Not sure how to customize our back-to-school printables? No worries! Keep reading How to Make Design Templates Not Look Like a Template to get the scoop!
4. Worksheets
Type: Educational Back-To-School Printables
Best Use
Educational printable worksheets are crucial for teachers and parents of toddlers and preschoolers. These resources help children become familiar with everyday items and activities while promoting fine motor skills essential for writing and other manual tasks. They also enhance hand-eye coordination, which digital mediums can’t replicate.
Therefore, the recommended use is to sell these back-to-school printables as digital downloads, allowing parents and teachers to access and print them anytime, anywhere. 🌟
Design Tips
- For these back-to-school activities, utilize our free, extensive image library to customize your designs in the most complete way. You can also upload your files to ensure a cohesive look in your educational worksheets. But always ensure the images are clear and high-quality; with Placeit assets, there’s no need to worry about the quality as it’s top-notch. 🤌
- The design of graphics and visual elements plays a crucial role. Therefore, it’s a good idea to incorporate smiley faces and friendly characters to make the filling of these activities more fun and engaging, helping kids connect better and enjoy the learning process.
- However, realistic graphics are also great for lessons that require recognition and learning. The goal is to balance playful and realistic elements to make these back-to-school worksheets attractive and educational.
- Here’s a pro tip for your back-to-school printable worksheets: incorporate symbols like gold stars or thumbs up that children can receive or color when they complete a task correctly. This provides positive reinforcement and makes learning more rewarding.
- Finally, in terms of colors, use a bright and varied color palette to capture children’s attention. For example, red, blue, yellow, and green are especially appealing to young children.
Product Tips
- Explore a wide range of themes for your back-to-school printables. At Placeit, we offer fun and educational resources tailored for kids, including world maps, colors, days of the week, months of the year, vehicles, desserts, emotions, and holidays. All these school worksheets are 100% customizable, allowing you to create popular themes like animals, numbers, the alphabet, fruits, vegetables, and more.
- You can also pick topics based on typical holidays to keep your back-to-school printables profitable year-round. Your Placeit subscription gives unlimited access to our templates without spending too much. ✨
- Additionally, include back-to-school activities that stimulate kids’ minds, like connect-the-dots, coloring pages, spot-the-difference, small puzzles, color-by-numbers, word-to-picture matching, and more.
- Create bundles centered around a single topic to add value for parents and teachers. Showcase example images on your website or Etsy store, clearly describing all included items and the file format (PDF is best for immediate printing).
- Finally, ensure customers understand that the worksheets they’re purchasing are digital items and will not be shipped.
📚📒 Explore the apparel world and skyrocket your back-to-school sales by reading Make Cool Back to School T-Shirt Designs & More!
5. Name Tags
Type: Decorative Back-To-School Printables
Best Use
Name tags are essential back-to-school printables that help label notebooks, books, pencils, stationery, lunch boxes, and other items.
You can choose a print-on-demand site to handle the printing or offer options for parents to print them at home. Even better, consider selling both!
Design Tips
- Allow customers to customize names and styles and incorporate their favorite graphics. But by default, include appealing graphics like stars, hearts, cute animals, smiley faces, and school-related icons.
- Also, it’s recommended to use bright, contrasting colors that are attractive and easy to see. Regarding name tags, colors can help differentiate between notebooks or subjects.
Product Tips
- Offer fully customizable name tags where parents can add their child’s name or leave space for writing in the name, grade, or subject.
- Provide name tags in different sizes suitable for various items, such as school supplies, pencils, notebooks, and lunch boxes.
- Create themed bundles like a dinosaur theme to make school supplies fun and exciting for kids.
- Design name tags in fun shapes like circles, stars, animals, or other appealing forms for children.
- Use clear and readable fonts to maintain a scholarly and polished look.
- Use vinyl for durability, waterproofness, ease of cleaning, and no sticky residue when removed.
- Finally, provide clear instructions on applying and removing name tags to ensure effective use without damaging the items they are applied to.
🍎👦 Looking for more items to sell during the scholar season? Then dive into this Personalized School Supplies to Add to Your Shop guide.
6. Stickers
Type: Decorative Back-To-School Printables
Best Use
For back-to-school stickers, the best approach is to send them to your favorite print-on-demand site so they can handle the printing and logistics. This allows customers to purchase cute back-to-school stickers in various finishes and designs.
If you’re selling digital downloads, be sure to provide HD PNG files.
Design Tips
- Allow customers to personalize stickers with names or optimistic quotes.
- Opt for uncluttered designs featuring a quote, a graphic, or a combination of both. But always consider your target audience when customizing these back-to-school printables. For example:
Teachers will love:
- Stickers with encouraging messages for students, such as “You did it”, “Brilliant”, and “Don’t stop now”, paired with cute designs. Punny rewards are highly sought by teachers, like a studious bee with “Un-bee-lievable work” or a friendly dinosaur with “Roarsome work!”
- Teachers also love pretty stationery. Design stickers for them to proudly display with quotes like “In my teacher era”, “Made to teach”, or “Teach with love”.
Kids might like:
- Stickers for kids should feature friendly animals or cartoon characters with happy faces and bright colors to enhance any notebook or lunchbox.
For college students, create:
- Stickers with motivational quotes like “Make it happen,” “Stop procrastinating,” “To-do today,” and “Good things are coming.” Ensure an aesthetic look with simple designs and incorporate graphics like stars, flowers, or gradient backgrounds.
Last but not least, parents will like:
- Functional stickers for planners and calendars to mark school events, exam days, meetings, and extracurricular activities. Include motivational messages for lunchboxes or notebooks, like “I love you,” “Great job,” and “I’m proud of you,” as well as stickers for special events like “Talent show,” and “Parent meetings.”
Product Tips
- Create stickers tailored for different groups: parents, teachers, college students, elementary and kindergarten students. Each group will have different design needs, so make sure you include something extraordinary for everyone!
- Consider who these stickers are for in terms of durability. For example, kindergarten stickers should be water-resistant and suitable for outdoor conditions (vinyl is recommended). Teachers may prefer recyclable paper stickers that can be used on stationery or notebooks. But always ensure these back-to-school printables are easy to peel and stick.
- The world of stickers is immense, so don’t limit yourself. Provide options such as holographic, matte, transparent, laminate, glossy, or even magnets. Nowadays, many print-on-demand sites offer these options. Additionally, consider selling sticker sheets, bundles, or individual stickers.
- Boost your sales by promoting themed bundles, which offer greater value and appeal to buyers. For example, create sticker bundles like the “First Day of Kindergarten Sticker Collection” or the “Teacher Reward Sticker Pack”. Get creative and think of as many variations as possible!
- Provide clear instructions on how to use stickers in different contexts (notebooks, planners, lunchboxes, etc.) and show photos of stickers in use to help buyers visualize their application.
If you’re creating individual stickers and need to remove a background, use our new AI Background Remover to transform your graphics effortlessly.
7. Notebooks
Type: Decorative Back-To-School Printables
Best Use
Notebooks may not be exclusively back-to-school printables, but you can give these popular items a fun twist with Placeit’s notebook covers. The best way to use these school supplies is through print-on-demand services.
🌟 Pro Tip: Printify’s new softcover journal with inside prints allows customization of the outside and inside covers, as well as the front and back of pages 1 to 3. Use Placeit’s bundles for a cohesive look across all pages—you’ll love them! 🤌
Design Tips
- Avoid using borders in designs, as they can appear uneven if the print is shifted during the printing process. Also, since most print-on-demand notebooks are small, avoid using tiny details or text in your designs to prevent them from printing blurry.
- Provide the option to add your customer’s name, motivational phrases, or specific images to the cover. Use Placeit’s design templates to replace information with customer-specific details easily.
- Ensure the notebook cover is fully designed with attractive graphics. The design should vary based on the target audience:
Let’s start with kids:
- Hands down, patterns work best! Use popular themes like fantastic imaginary creatures, animals, rainbows, flowers, princesses, and superheroes. Also, use bright colors, as they’re great for attracting kids.
For university students and adults:
- Opt for modern, abstract, and functional designs or patterns. Neutral colors and simple patterns can be very appealing.
And what about teachers?
- For them, create designs that include the word “teacher” and the teacher’s name. Use either warm, neutral colors or more colorful designs with school motifs.
Product Tips
- Include a range of notebook styles, such as spiral notebooks with ruled lines, blank or ruled line journals, spiral-bound notebooks, and hardcover journals.
- Ensure the paper is about 90 gsm. This is ideal for regular writing with pens, pencils, and fine-tipped markers, providing good resistance and minimizing ink bleed-through.
- Show clear, high-quality photos of the notebooks, including images of the covers, interiors, and examples of use to help customers visualize the final product.
- A good idea to add more value to your offerings is to bundle notebooks with custom stickers. They’re the perfect combo! You can also offer themed packages or bundles at a reduced price, such as a “Back-to-School Pack” with a notebook for each main subject.
- Last but not least, show clear, high-quality photos of the notebooks, including images of the covers and interiors and examples of use, to help customers visualize the final product.
Marketing Tips
To Boost Your Back-To-School Printables
To make the most out of your new back-to-school printables, here is some golden advice to earn an A+ in your back-to-school sales! Let’s check them:
Add More Printables
Expand your back-to-school printables with certificates, printable masks, and posters to boost your seasonal sales. At Placeit, we have endless resources to help you shine online and bring all your visions to life.
Implement SEO
SEO is the holy grail to driving traffic to your online store. So, make sure you include relevant keywords on your titles and descriptions to make your products easy to find. Additionally, in your product descriptions, add information like product details, materials, formats, sizes, colors, customization options, buying instructions, and preservation tips so your customers know what to expect when acquiring your assets.
😉 Pro tip: Tools like Google Trends, Ahrefs, or Semrush can help you understand keyword relevance and search volume. Also, you can check on Etsy to see how other sellers promote their back-to-school printables.
Leverage Email Marketing
Email is still a powerful marketing tool. But to make it more effective, you can target and create special emails for different audiences, such as kids, teachers, parents, and university students. This way, your customers can receive recommendations based on what they genuinely want.
Additionally, suggest related items in your emails to increase cross-selling opportunities. For example, suggest planners, to-do lists, and stickers if promoting calendars. Include relevant blog content to provide additional value.
You can also email flash sales, early bird offers, coupons, and last-minute deals. Just remember to maintain a well-structured calendar to ensure consistent communication.
Make It Profitable All Year Long
Although these back-to-school printables are designed to boost sales during the scholar season, you can adapt them for year-round use. Modify them for different occasions and holidays like summer or Christmas to keep sales going throughout the year. With our editor, this task is easier than ever, and you can have various versions of one template in minutes!
✏️ Pro tip: Want to know how to get the most out of Placeit? Read My Placeit Is Here! Let’s Learn How to Use It!
Run Promos
Parents are looking for the best deals, so offering attractive discounts is a great way to draw in customers. Consider volume discounts like ‘Buy three, get one free’ or ‘Purchase one, get the second at half price”.
🤑 Pro tip: For maximum impact, run promotions during peak times, such as late July to early August.
Use Social Media
Social media is one of your best friends for spreading the word about your back-to-school printables. Luckily, at Placeit, we’ve got all the back-to-school templates you’ll ever need! From Facebook covers to let your customers know you’re all set for the season to Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram posts and stories to share educational content, quotes, discounts, tips, and product updates, we’ve got you covered!
👧🔠 Looking for more? Don’t miss 9 Back-to-School Marketing Ideas.
And That's a Wrap!
We’ve officially come to the end of this back-to-school printables list! By following these tips and tricks, you can create stunning and functional back-to-school printables for a wide range of customers, making their academic experience un-bee-lievable and magical. ✨🍯😊
