Boost your sales during back-to-school season with these design ideas and tips

Now that Father’s Day has passed, back-to-school season (August) is the next biggest “shopping event.”

The start of this school year feels extra special since there should (hopefully) be a return to normalcy in most places around the country.

Last year, school was conducted remotely due to the global pandemic. But now that vaccines are being widely distributed and infection numbers are much lower, many schools are going to reopen for in-person learning for the 2021-2022 school year.

Customers always do a lot of shopping during the back-to-school season. Students need new clothes and school and dorm room supplies.

Plus, people love giving gifts to teachers and other school faculty as well as to students to say welcome back. And I predict that even more gifts will be given this year.

To help you prepare for the 2021 back-to-school shopping season, below, you’ll find a bunch of tips and design ideas for a variety of gifts for teachers and students.

Let’s take a look…

Gifts for teachers

Teachers work really hard. They care about their students, and they often go the extra mile by purchasing things for their classrooms and students out of their own pockets.

As a way to say thanks, people like to buy gifts for teachers at the beginning of the school year. So there are lots of opportunities here to make sales by coming up with teacher-related design ideas.

You can make designs specific to teachers of all different levels:

• preschool teachers
• kindergarten teachers
• elementary school teachers
• middle school teachers
• high school teachers
• college and university professors

You could even drill down further and make designs specific to different grades: grade 1, grade 2, grade 3, and so on, all the way up to grade 12.

Additionally, you can make designs for teachers of all different subjects. This is especially relevant as you move into the higher grade levels.

• homeroom
• math
  • algebra
  • calculus
  • geometry
  • trigonometry
• English (language arts)
• history
• science
  • biology
  • anatomy
  • physics
  • chemistry
• art
• music
  • chorus
  • band
  • orchestra
• gym (PE)
• languages
  • French
  • Spanish
  • German
  • Italian
  • Chinese
  • Japanese
  • Arabic
  • Portuguese
  • Russian
  • Latin
  • et cetera

And don’t forget about other school faculty. In addition to teachers, you can make designs for gifts for other employees, such as…

• principals
• deans
• vice principals
• teacher assistants (TA)
• lunch servers
• janitors
• guidance counselors
• adjustment counselors
• school nurses
• school social workers
• school security guides
• crossing guards
• school receptionists

Classroom décor gifts

Custom Happy offers a variety of products, several of which make great gifts to help spruce up teachers’ classrooms. These items include…

• posters
• candles
• coasters

Teachers can hang posters on their classroom walls. And they can put candles on their desks along with coasters to set their drinks on.

Below, you’ll find several teacher-related design ideas that you can put onto any of these items. (NOTE: As always, these designs are meant as inspiration only. Please do not copy any of these designs exactly.)

Posters

You can take a few different angles with posters for teachers’ classrooms.

The posters can be educational, depicting things students need to learn, such as the alphabet or the Periodic Table. They can be inspirational, featuring quotes to help motivate students. Or they can be humorous with jokes or funny puns. You can even make personalized posters… “[insert teacher’s name]’s Classroom” (e.g. Mrs. Kent’s Classroom).

Here are a few examples I found on Etsy:

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Candles

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Coasters

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Welcome back gifts

“Welcome back” gifts are going to be more relevant and meaningful after transitioning back to in-person learning.

Here are some examples of “welcome back” designs I found on Etsy that would make great teacher gifts this year.

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Zoom teacher gifts 

There may be some schools that aren’t transitioning back to in-person learning. Or some schools may still offer the option to learn remotely.

For these teaching situations, here are some distance-learning design ideas found on Etsy:

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Gifts for students 

In addition to teacher gifts, people also like to buy gifts for students at the start of a new school year. And same as with your teacher gift design ideas, you can make designs for students of all different ages and grade levels:

• preschool students
• kindergarten students
• elementary school students
• middle school students
• high school students
• college and university students
• students grades K through 12

You can also drill down into specific subjects, especially if you’re targeting students at the college or university level. For example…

• medical school students
• nursing school students
• law school students
• business school students
• school of education students
• liberal arts students
• et cetera

Gifts for students can be funny or poignant, and they can be personalized. You can add the student’s name, the school they attend, and/or the year. The gifts can be from teachers or other school faculty, parents or other relatives, or friends.

Here are some examples I found on Etsy:

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In addition to giving novelty items as gifts, CustomHappy has a few products that work great for back-to-school clothing and supplies. These items include t-shirts, socks, and journals. Customers may also be interested in CustomHappy’s pillowcases if they’re shopping for dorm room décor.

I hope you found these back-to-school tips and design ideas useful! Leave a comment below if you have anything else to add or share. I love hearing from you. :-) And if you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it with your friends and family.