By Eman Youssef It's "Back to school" time, and with it comes the annual costly, cumbersome task of having to buy uniforms, shoes, back packs, notebooks, and loads of stationary. Last minute shopping reached its peak last weekend. Eman Youssef reports "Schools have to publish lists of the needed supplies early, so as to allow parents enough time to shop while stores are less crowded and prices are lower," said Maha Ahmed, mother of three, who added, "Families need an easy way to find the best prices on back-to-school necessities." Parents who were tired of guessing when and where the best back-to-school items would go on sale found relief at the annual school supplies fair which attracted an unprecedented number of visitors to the Cairo International Fair Grounds. Companies from both the private and public sectors are competing to offer everything a student requires, including leather goods, food, uniforms, computers and stationary. According to Mohamed El-Said Saleh, chairman of the General Organisation for International Exhibitions and Fairs (GOIEF), "on the first two days, 500,000 people visited the fair." He explained that "the aim of the exhibition is to meet the needs [for school supplies] of people with limited incomes by offering them high quality goods at low prices." According to Saleh, the average discount on goods at the fair is 50 per cent. He also added that on average, parents of school and university students in Cairo are expected to spend LE1,000 this year on back-to-school items. Discounts at the fair range from 10 to 60 per cent. Among the best bargains were school bags, costing between LE15 and LE45, and shoes, which could be purchased for LE15 to LE60. Consumers seemed enthusiastic about the deals offered at the fair. "The exhibition is a very good chance to find the items we need in one place and at low prices," said Sahar Sayed , mother of two. Praising the impact of competition on prices, Ahmed Samir, who visited the fair numerous times, said that prices decreased over the course of the event. This may be attributed to the fact that vendors were able to quickly recover what they paid in rent for their booths throughout the brisk sales period.
