Aug 23, 2006 By Rebekah Sungala 3 min read

Ready to go shopping for school supplies with your children? Get out your credit cards. This fall, mom and dad are being asked to dig deep and shovel out a few more bucks on electronics for their children.

The must-have items on many shopping lists: graphing calculators, laptop computers and flash drives that store and transfer computer data.

A recent survey released by the National Retail Federation (NRF) showed electronics and apparel purchases fueled back-to-school spending this year.

The NRF survey, released in July, showed families with school-age children were expected to spend more money on back-to-school shopping this year.

The average family, according to the NRF survey, will spend about $527 school shopping this year, almost $100 dollars more than last year.

In 2005, the average family spent $443 on school supplies and clothing.

According to the NRF survey, total spending for back-to-school shopping in 2006 is estimated to reach $17.6 billion.

According to the NRF survey, total spending on electronics or computer-related equipment, such as home computers, laptops, hand-held PDAs and calculators, is estimated to increase by more than $1.5 billion this year, totaling about $3.82 billion worth of merchandise.

NRF President and CEO, Tracy Mullin, said retailers pay close attention to what sells during the back-to-school shopping season, making sure their store is stocked full of the hot items in time for Christmas shopping.

“The back-to-school shopping season serves as an important bellwether for the holiday season by helping retailers pinpoint emerging trends and popular products,” Mullin said in a prepared statement. “Retailers will be tracking the performance of apparel and electronics very closely to ensure that their stores have the right merchandise mix for the fourth quarter.”

In addition to electronics, apparel is also a big seller for retailers, with the average consumer expected to spend about $228 per child on new school clothes, according to the NRF survey.

Other popular items on back-to-school lists include shoes, averaging $98, and school supplies such as notebooks, folders, pencils, backpacks and lunchboxes, totaling an average $86.

In addition to spending more money, the survey showed more parents are getting their back-to-school shopping done earlier.

According to the NRF survey, one in six parents began shopping for merchandise in June and almost 50 percent of parents began shopping in July.

However, one in three parents decided to wait until a week or two before the start of the school year, the survey stated.

“As retailers begin to roll-out special promotions and savings, consumers will begin hitting the stores to scoop up essential back-to-school merchandise,” Phil Rist, vice president of strategy for BIGresearch, the company that conducted the survey for NRF, said in a prepared statement.

This year Rist said many stores used a “variety of unique and fun merchandising strategies” that encouraged consumers to begin shopping “sooner rather than later.”

According to the NRF survey, discount stores remained the most popular back-to-school shopping destinations, with 72 percent of shoppers headed to the discounters to purchase items on their lists.