• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, July 28, 2015

The completion of back-to-school shopping is running a bit late this year and, as expected, smartphone activity will be a big part of the mix.

Very few (14%) consumers planned to complete their back-to-school shopping within a month or two before school starts and almost a third (31%) won’t complete it until after the school year is underway, based on new research from Deloitte.

The annual study comprised a survey of 1,000 parents of school-aged children with at least one child attending K-12 this fall.

Almost all (88%) consumers in the study own a smartphone and 73% own a tablet.

And for shopping this year, 80% of consumers plan to use their smartphones during the process.

The use of smartphones in back-to-school shopping varies, with the highest use related to discounts and coupons. Here’s how consumers plan to use their smartphones to shop this time around:

• 57% -- Get/download discounts, coupons, sale information
• 57% -- Get price information
• 53% -- Get a store location
• 44% -- Access a retailer’s website
• 42% -- Get product information
• 37% -- Locate a store that carries a particular product
• 36% -- Shop online

With beacons in use in many stores for more than a year now, a small percentage of consumers are becoming aware of them.

About half (49%) know what an in-store beacon is and only 9% of smartphone owners plan to engage with in-store beacon technology to a greater extent than last year while back-to-school shopping.

Mobile payments are pretty much in the same situation. Only 7% plan to use a mobile payment or digital wallet service in back-to-school purchases this year.

Most purchases will be happening in stores rather than online, which is consistent with many other studies.

The other consistency in the findings is that shoppers are turning to their phones in hopes of finding a deal.

That’s one thing about mobile commerce that never seems to change.