Growing retail costs for school supplies across North America
Retail prices for nearly all school paper and white goods — including business and regular notebooks, textbooks, and diaries — rose by about 20–30% over the past year. Market participants and the data operator OFD Platform reported these trends to socialbites.ca, highlighting a broader inflationary pattern in educational materials.
Oleg Novikov, head of the Eksmo-AST publishing group, explained that the primary driver behind the higher prices for school materials is the jump in production costs, which occurred in March.
“In March, production costs climbed by around 30%. We expect to hold this level for the near term. When compared to June last year, price increases for school textbooks average about 20–26%,” Novikov noted.
Leonid Simakov of CheckIndex, the analytical arm of the OFD Platform, told socialbites.ca that the average cost of a basic laptop series in Russia during the second half of July 2022 was 386 rubles. Over the year, growth was modest—roughly 5%—but the average price of a school diary rose by about 31% year over year, reaching 181 rubles.
Rising production costs
Purchase and production prices for paper and white goods — notebooks, diaries, and textbooks — climbed even more, by around 50%. Lyudmila Shevareva of Mayak Kants LLC attributed the surge to higher raw material costs.
“Unfortunately, over the last two to three years there has been a steady increase in the cost of our main raw material. Paper accounts for 80–85% of the cost of ledgers,” Shevareva said.
She noted that costs for other inputs, including printing inks, packaging, and wire, have also risen since early 2022. “These materials are used across notebooks and albums. Compared with last summer, price increases were about one and a half times,” she summarized.
The one-and-a-half-fold rise in notebook, textbook, and stationery purchase prices was also confirmed by the school supplies wholesaler Iglika-Press.
“Compared with last year, our workbooks rose by about 50% in procurement costs. The same applies to office supplies,” said Iglika-Press.
Meanwhile, Biblio-Globus observed that price growth for textbooks since early 2022 generally tracks the upward trend seen in recent years.
“Textbook costs rise in step with other printed products: roughly 5–7% per year. 2022 followed the same pattern,” Biblio-Globus stated.
A diary for a primary school student now ranges from about 80 rubles for a simple, clip-bound cover to around 700 rubles for a faux leather cover with lace. Notebooks, depending on page count and the quality of the cover, sell from roughly 8 to 70 rubles.
“By the end of the first quarter of 2022, supplier prices for white paper products jumped roughly 30–50%, after which the market stabilized and prices balanced with inflation, aligning with retail expectations,” Biblio-Globus concluded.
What CheckIndex counted
Earlier in the week, CheckIndex calculated that a typical school kit purchased in the second half of July rose by 4% since June and by about 20% year over year, reaching roughly 14,000 rubles. The kit typically includes a school uniform and shoes, a second pair of trousers or a skirt, a diary, a pencil case, a set of pencils, pens, paints, notebooks, backpacks, and other essentials.
Meanwhile, Dmitry Shatunov, head of the youth assembly of the State Duma, asked the Federal Antitrust Service to review the validity of the price increases for school supplies. The Federation Council supported the inquiry. Lilia Gumerova, chair of the Federation Council Committee on Science, Education and Culture, suggested that if price hikes are justified, the state should consider reimbursements for families facing financial hardship.
In an interview, Yana Lantratova, First Deputy Chair of the State Duma Education Committee, urged close attention to price regulation in light of rising printed material costs.
“The sharp rise in prices for printed educational products calls for action. It may be time to reconsider the pace of textbook price increases. This article should be edited without errors, but we should avoid a wholesale rejection of printed textbooks. Replacing them with tablets is not the answer—schools should use electronic devices alongside traditional textbooks,” she said.
Note: All figures above reflect market observations and industry commentary collected through mid-2022, and readers should consider local price changes and inflation when assessing current costs across North America.