Inflation: Prices for school supplies increased by 8.5% over the year, according to the DGCCRF.

Returning to school will cost more for the French. The price of school supplies increased by 8.47% compared to the start of the school year last year, but remained below the overall increase in consumer goods (+12.75%), according to the DGCCRF survey, which shows quite wise behavior among professionals.

In particular, this inflation is “largely driven by the stationery department (+10.76%)” compared to +5.13% in the writing department, a survey by the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer and Anti-Fraud shows. Several ministers spoke about this after the publication of alarming figures by consumer associations.

The increase in prices for these products over the year, observed at the end of August, was slightly lower than at the beginning of July (+8.47% versus 9.07%). The DGCCRF believes that “this does not support the hypothesis that distributors overall increased their profits as the start of the school year approached.”

Rising wood prices

For office supplies, the rise in prices is mainly due to rising paper prices, notes Fraud Repression. On average, in 2022, prices for stationery manufacturers increased by +16.2% due to rising wood prices.

In Western France, the office of Trade Minister Olivia Gregoire notes that the rise in paper production prices is thus higher than the rise in selling prices and therefore “that we cannot conclude that manufacturers and distributors have made unjustified profits.”

However, the DGCCRF noted that shelf prices “remain high” despite declines in paper and pulp prices. She attributes the reason, in part, to the fact that the prices agreed between suppliers and distributors were at the time of the only annual commercial negotiations, from December 2022 to March 2023, before the reduction.

An argument that seems to favor those who would like to see more frequent rounds of negotiations. The discount rate for these goods increased slightly (+0.6 percentage points to 34.2% compared to 2022). “Back in the spring, I asked distributors to include school supplies in their anti-inflation quarter: many did so, and there were more promotions than last year,” says Olivia Gregoire from Western France.

However, she admits that supply inflation of 8.5% is “still high.” “We should be able to work on group purchasing systems to buy even cheaper,” she said.