Deloitte's 2026 Holiday Retail Survey found that, for the first time, Gen Z and millennials are expected to account for 50% of holiday spending. Three in four Gen Z shoppers (76%) plan to give clothing and accessories. (Deloitte counts adults aged 18 to 29 as Gen Z, so these are not figures for college students alone.)
The useful question is where to reach students while they are still buying. For much of the season, that is the campus store.
Why the campus store matters in November and December
The fall semester typically runs through December, with finals in early to mid-December. That keeps students on campus, close to the store, for much of the holiday selling window.
The store is also where they already shop. Campus stores carry apparel and merchandise, technology, snacks and personal care. Across Follett's network, that adds up to 1,000+ campus and digital stores, 6M+ college students, 9M+ in-store and online transactions a year and 61M+ annual site visits.
Students are not the only audience. Follett Media Network reaches college students, parents, alumni and fans.
Three moments to plan around
1. Gift shopping before break
Deloitte expects holiday shopping activity to peak in late November, with 77% of shoppers active, and to stay high into early December (78%). Students shop in that window too, for family, for friends and for themselves: 49% of Gen Z plan to buy themselves a gift this year. A third of Gen Z (33%) plan to buy personalized or monogrammed gifts, and 37% want same-day delivery; a purchase in the campus store is same-day by default. Apparel, gift sets, tech accessories and personal care all fit here.
2. Finals
Finals keep students on campus and short on time. It is a good moment for products that help them get through it: snacks, drinks, supplies and personal care. Sampling at the register or a tabling event in the store reaches students who are already coming in.
3. After students leave for break
After students leave for winter break, campus store websites keep taking orders. Each web order is a chance to put a brand in front of the person who placed it, through an insert in the package or a banner on the site.
What to plan, channel by channel
Start in the store. Signs reach students at the shelf and the register. Inserts go into register purchases and web orders, so they also reach people ordering from home. A meal-kit brand has used inserts this way across a multi-year partnership with FMN, distributing 1.4 million inserts through 600+ stores.
Sampling can move sales, not just awareness. In a two-month spring campaign, a global candy brand lifted in-store sales 21% over the prior year by pairing email with in-store and web-order sampling and student social ambassadors. The campaign put 250,000 samples into students' hands across 235 stores. At the holidays, a sample before break goes home with the student. Samples can go out at the register, in web orders or at tabling events in the store.
On campus store websites, banners reach students and gift buyers while they browse. The home page banner draws 1.6 to 5.1 million monthly views, and My Offers tiles, which appear on every page, draw 2.3 to 7.7 million. Programmatic display extends that to Follett's first-party site visitors across 1.1 million+ websites and 173,000 mobile apps, with school-level targeting available.
Email puts an offer in front of students while they plan their shopping, either as a dedicated brand email or as a banner in a Follett email. In a back-to-school campaign, an outdoor apparel brand ran dedicated emails, email banners and a primary web banner, and saw a 68% average open rate and a 36% lift in online sales.
Strategy: build the plan backward from winter break
Start with the week students leave campus and work back from it.
Settle the offer and creative early, so everything is ready for students' last weeks on campus.
Run in-store while students are on campus: the weeks before Thanksgiving break, then again through finals.
Have email and web banners live during Thanksgiving week, which Deloitte calls "the main event" of holiday shopping.
Match the offer online and in store, so students see one message in both places.
Keep something running after students leave. A web-order insert or a site banner reaches the people placing orders from home.
Agree on measurement before launch. FMN reports email click-through rate, units sold and brand sales revenue; online revenue, click-through rate and conversion; photos of in-store execution; and pre and post awareness research on request.
Plan your holiday campaign
If you are planning holiday for your brand or for a client, get the FMN media kit for channels, specs and case results, or book a short call with Vinny to map out a plan.
Get the media kit | Book a call with Vinny
Sources
Deloitte, 2026 Holiday Retail Survey, press release, Oct. 15, 2026 (survey of 4,000 US consumers, Aug. 26 to Sept. 10, 2026).
Coursera, "When Does College Start? Key Dates for Fall and Spring."
Follett Media Network media kit and case results; Follett campus store pages.