How to avoid back-to-school hassles

It’s back-to-school again, that time of year that’s a worry-fest for parents: there’s money for tuition, textbooks and school supplies to think about, not to mention the DepEd’s new K+12 program.

I already enrolled my daughter and the next step was to shop for school supplies, so naturally we went to National Book Store. To be totally honest, even if it’s not back-to-school season you can always find us at National: my daughter loves to write and draw so she’s always on the lookout for the cutest pencils, markers and erasers … even her correction tape must look nice, or at the very least come in a pink dispenser.

My husband and I go to National invariably to shop for books, though we know we can find pretty much anything we need there. Scott has recently taken up painting again so he buys all his art supplies there — from easel to canvases to paints — while I go to score mailing supplies or drool over their Moleskine notebooks, of which you can never have too many.

It’s also the first back-to-school experience for Xandra Ramos-Padilla, National’s purchasing director for books, whose daughter is entering big school this year. “We want to make back to school a little bit easier — it’s high season, it’s rushed, so the best thing to do is to buy early,” she advises. “All our promos also make it less stressful and more convenient.”

Here, Xandra gives parents valuable tips on how to shop smart, become savvy, and breeze through “back to school.”

130 branches and counting: The National Book Store branch in Rockwell’s Power Plant Mall

• Bring a list. No one can remember everything, especially when you’ve got car passes, tuition and back-to-school clothes to think about at the same time. National Book Store (NBS) actually distributes a back-to-school shopping checklist, a “magalogue” filled with new items from their vendors and a Best Buy catalog to make their customers’ shopping experience a lot more convenient. So, make use of the list, and keep it handy.

• Start early to avoid crowds. Early summer is a good time to get the jump on school supplies. Do space out your visits if you think of more things you’re child will need this semester. Don’t start on June 10! “Also, don’t go on weekends,” Xandra notes.

• For a better selection, check out a larger branch if you can, and spend time looking around. You never know what useful item you might find. “Our big thing this year is Glorietta 1 is reopening,” says Xandra, “so we’re going to make that into a flagship — three stories.” They’ve also added a lot of products like cellphone cases, mosquito patches, protective screens for smart phones, flashlights, USB drives, and office equipment, not to mention an eco-friendly line of notebooks for environmentally conscious moms. “It might be what a student needs but hasn’t been in a bookstore before,” Xandra notes. “We’ve also added branded products like Moleskine and Crane, which are popular.”

Even Powerbooks, which used to purvey only books, has added everyday supplies to its stock, to meet the needs of a changing industry.

• Be savvy about the list your child’s school issues — and what you don’t have to buy from there. You might have to buy your textbooks from your child’s school, like I do, but “they also include stuff like erasers, watercolors, and you can choose not to buy it there,” advises Xandra. “At least when you go to NBS you have your pick of brands or variety or price.

Shop and help school a child: In National Book Store’s Project Aral advocacy, you can buy a P25 school-supply kit that will be donated to schools in far-flung areas.

“There’s a host of other things you can buy at National that would help you through the year, like Chinese jackstones,” she laughs. “For my daughter I thought, okay, you’re going to preschool, you need to learn jackstones, and we looked in a toy store, but they didn’t have it. They had it at National. So I bought my jackstones there.

“Even just to encourage them to write or be creative, all the art materials we buy them at NBS,” she continues. “There are fancy kits but sometimes you don’t need that, you just need paper, which we have, and different kinds of writing instruments, because my daughter loves crafting.”

• Divide up your tasks. In the store, maybe have your son or daughter hunt down pencils, pens and erasers while you pick out notebooks and textbooks. It definitely will save lots of time in a big store.

• Look for bargains. The best bargain I’ve found at National is their in-house brand, Best Buy; you’d be hard-pressed to find anything cheaper. So don’t forget to peruse that Best Buy catalog. “Often, National Book Store will have items — including books — at cheaper prices than schools do,” reveals Xandra.

• Take advantage of all the promos. At the entrance of the store NBS usually has banners advertising ongoing deals. Gifts with purchase are also on display at the cash registers. Here’s a quick rundown:

Get a utility keeper for free with every single-receipt purchase worth P1,000 with participating products marked with an “N” sticker.

Get a multi-pocket bag for P100 with every single-receipt purchase worth P500 with participating products marked with an “N” sticker.

“There’s a host of other things you can buy at National that would help you through the year, like Chinese jackstones,” laughs Xandra, who bought some for her daughter.

Get a free Milo Baon Pack (which includes three pieces of 180-ml Milo Ready-to-Drink) from Citibank with a minimum purchase worth P1,500 using your Citibank credit card, in straight, Paylite, or net of Pay with Points. Get six pieces for P3,000 and up.

You can also get samples from different food and beverage brands like cereal brand Koko Krunch.

• Get a Laking National card. A loyalty program called Laking National earns you points while shopping. “It’s even more convenient now because we’ve installed ID-making machines at each store, so now you can renew and get a card on the spot,” Xandra says. “Customers used to wait days to get their cards.”

• If you’re far from a National Book Store, you can always shop at their website. NBS’s e-commerce site re-launched last February with a new design and improved customer service. Right now they only sell books, but school and office supplies and equipment will soon be in the offing, not to mention other branded items like Crane & Co. stationery, Moleskine notebooks and Sheaffer pens.

• Get involved in Project Aral. NBS’s advocacy Project Aral is a P25 back-to-school kit you can buy at National and Powerbooks as a donation to a school that requests assistance. In the kit are a student’s basic needs: two nicely designed notebooks, a pencil, and sharpener or eraser. “Last year we donated 200,000 kits, and this year we’re already up to 60,000, so the rate has doubled,” observes Xandra. “It’s great because it’s crowd-sourcing; we get participation from the community.” And it benefits schools in far-flung areas like mountain provinces. Now on its fifth year, Project Aral runs until June 30.

• Attend a book signing. The latest literary celebrity to grace our shores is Mark Millar, the bestselling graphic novelist of Kick-Ass, Wanted, Civil War, The Ultimates, and Ultimate Avengers, among many others. The whole creative team of Supercrooks and Superior, including Pinoy artists Leinil Yu, Gerry Alanguilan and colorist Sunny Gho, will also be at the signing.

“We hold a lot of book events because when you get to meet the author in person it enhances your experience of having the books,” Xandra says. “You can talk to the author and have your book signed, which you can’t do with an e-book.”

• A book makes a good reward for a helpful son or daughter. If your child helps you in picking out school stuff, why not throw in a book of their choice? It will help put them in the “reading” mindset for the opening of classes. Hotly anticipated sequels that have just been released include The Serpent’s Shadow, Insurgent and City of Lost Souls.

If mommy needs a reward, controversial bestsellers like Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades of Freed and Fifty Shades Darker are also available.

Despite the advent of e-books, National’s sales have not only been holding steady, but growing. “Even if I know lot of people who download, books are still selling,” notes Xandra. “It’s always good to have that digital option, but the paper-book experience is so different than the digital book experience, which can be used for traveling. Our bestsellers are even more bestsellers now, like Percy Jackson, or Cassandra Clare, Rick Riordan, Lauren Oliver or Veronica Ross.”

Far cry from 70 years ago, when National Book Store was a stall in Escolta during the Japanese Occupation that was rebuilt to a two-level building after it was razed by fire. Expansion in the ’70s led to the chain’s steady growth, with over 50 branches during the ’90s, over 100 branches during the 2000s and, at present, over 130 branches.

And now, with the Ramos family’s gift for inventing new reasons to come to National Book Store, parents can even take the edge off back-to-school season.

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National Book Store has over 130 branches nationwide. The latest branches to open are National Book Store in Lucky Chinatown Binondo Mall, Robinsons Calasiao, Harbor Point Subic, SM Olongapo and the flagship store in Glorietta 1, Ayala Center, Makati. More stores are scheduled to open this year, including Robinsons Palawan, SM San Fernando, and SM Consolacion.