There is so much pressure for a teenage kid when it comes to buying school stationery. What's cool, what's not, why we must get the same brand as everybody else. The problem too, is the shopping list from the school is usually quite vague- like you need a 140 page ruled book, when they only come in 128 or 192 pages.
Officeworks is the one-stop shop for this kind of stuff, but it's still not a lot of fun. And it's expensive. And time-consuming. Some schools take way this option by adding a cost to the fees, and they actually purchase the stuff themselves- that way everybody gets the same, and it's fair. Because for a kid, a 29c no-name eraser is not cool, compared to a Smiggle $4 eraser (there's no point trying to explain to them that they both do the same job equally). There's so much competitiveness amongst kids already, this just adds another layer of complexity. Think of it as a kid who gets all their school supplies from Aldi, compared to the kid who gets it all from Officeworks. And don't even start about school shoes and sneakers. Branding is definitely in play with these items, in a big way.
There are so many things that kids need to learn in order to progress to adulthood, and in a way, they just need to deal with this whole thing. But it doesn't make it any more fun. But it is what it is, and we just go with them, support them, and pull out our Amex at the checkout.
Have a great, creative week!
D