“Making group purchases is a very good idea, recognized Wednesday on France Bleu Élisabeth Borne, it is something […] on which we will be able to work in the coming months for the start of the 2024 school year”. On paper, buying school supplies together has only advantages: saving time, money and better cohesion between parents and teachers. However, this initiative is only applied in a few establishments and is struggling to become widespread.
First difficulty, “you have to find a group of parents who are willing to organize group purchases”, explains Grégoire Ensel, president of the Federation of Parents’ Councils of Students (FCPE). Indeed, it is neither the schools, colleges or high schools that take care of the logistics, because it would be necessary to hire additional staff or add working time. Contacted by Le Figaro, the Ministry of Education did not provide an explanation. It is therefore the parents of students who meet on a voluntary basis and who themselves carry out the negotiations with the suppliers.
At the Saint-Magloire private college, located in Dol-de-Bretagne, in Ille-et-Vilaine, this operation has existed for ten years. Each year, a kit of supplies is designed by parents for sixth, fifth and fourth graders. “Volunteers take care of it from A to Z, once an agreement with the teachers has been reached. We then build the kit and request a quote from our historical supplier, which is a local bookstore-stationery,” says Jean-Marc Papail, member of the Association of parents of free education students (APEL). “Once we have validated the quote, we centralize the delivery and fill the bags ourselves with all the supplies included in the kits,” he adds.
Result, baskets “at cost prices”, which defy all competition: 58 euros for the sixth grade kit (which also includes classic supplies, a diary and plastic arts references), 34 euros for the fifth grade and 56 euros for the fourth kit. If sixth grade is compulsory for all students, parents stay there from one year to the next. “Last year, we sold 177 kits for sixth graders, 165 for fifth graders and 166 for fourth graders,” says Jean-Marc Papail.
While these kits allow parents to avoid the rush on supermarket shelves, they also save them money. In addition to food, school supplies are also hit by inflation. At the end of July, UFC-Que-Choisir noted a 10% increase in one year “on pens, notebooks, rulers and other materials”. Grégoire Ensel assures him, group purchases allow savings of the order of “20 to 30% cheaper on wholesale prices, in comparison with supermarkets”. A solution that therefore allows, in part, to reduce price increases on the final invoice.
Beware, however, of suppliers and group purchasing specialists who are multiplying on the Internet. “They sometimes offer high prices and are often displayed excluding taxes,” warns Jamy Belkiri, president of the consumption division of Families of France. “You also have to be careful about delivery costs, which are added at the end of the order,” she adds. For Sandrine Le Mad, APEL president of the Saint-Joseph college in Bruz, in Ille-et-Vilaine, “you should not hesitate to make quotes with several suppliers”. Then it remains to choose the cheapest and most serious.
For parents who want to get into group buying, Sandrine Le Mad recommends “building a good team” because “it does take time” and “you have to listen to parents”. “But for the volunteers, it’s a very interesting experience, she insists, in college we don’t normally meet the parents anymore, so we have the right to privileged moments of exchange”. “We can also work with the establishment and the teachers, in particular on the weight of schoolbags and the optimization of the list of school supplies”, adds Grégoire Ensel. An initiative which therefore makes it possible to regain a certain solidarity between adults and to ensure a smooth return to the start of the school year.