School Fair at Epicentr: up to -50% off everything for school supplies—from stationery to electronics

Preparation for the new school year has long ceased to be limited to notebooks, pens, and a backpack. Today, the school basket also includes items for creativity, clothing, sports equipment, technology, and even furniture. In August Epicentr offers to gather everything needed for the school year within the School Fair with savings of up to 50%.

How the school basket has changed The modern school basket is increasingly less like a list of dozens of stationery items. It is turning into a comprehensive set for learning, creativity, and leisure. Parents strive to organize a child’s learning space, worrying about comfort and safety. Therefore, in addition to traditional pencils, pens, and pencil cases, the shopping list now includes laptops and tablets for online classes, specialized desk lamps for eye protection, comfortable chairs and desks, and sports uniforms. Epicentr has become the place where you can buy everything—from a pencil to a computer—in one space. From 1 to 31 August 2026 this year the network runs the “School Fair” campaign under the slogan “Learn, Dream, Achieve!” and offers savings of up to 50%. Epicentr holds the School Fair until 1 September (photo: network press service). Stationery: broad assortment and emotional trends Stationery remains the “heart” of the school season. Today the range in Epicentr comprises about 37 thousand items and is represented by almost 600 brands. At the same time, the share of Ukrainian producers reaches 45%. And the scale of demand is impressively illustrated by last year’s figures: if you stack all notebooks sold in the network’s malls during the “School Fair” into one pile, their height would equal the height of 20 Hoverla. Lyudmila Zanarevska, head of the Epicentr stationery department, notes that only 25% of the assortment consists of staple goods. Everything else are dynamic positions updated yearly due to design changes, covers, popularity of certain products, and new products appearing. According to her, the main trends of recent years are emotion and collection. “People gladly take a pen with ears or glue with a cap in the shape of a capybara. Now we all need positive emotions, and emotional stationery is exactly the product that can delight at quite modest costs,” says Lyudmila Zanarevska. The second steady trend is collections. A child can choose main goods in one style—with a favorite character, theme, or sports team logo. Collections of stationery are popular among schoolchildren (photo: network press service). Epicentr annually develops about seven exclusive collections for its Nota Bene private label, considering preferences of both younger primary students and teenagers. Most of these goods are manufactured in Ukraine. According to Zanarevska, approximately 80% of the final choice of stationery is up to the child. At the same time, Epicentr’s task is to ensure that the child’s interests are taken into account: goods must be high quality and meet all necessary standards. What modern students choose Despite technological changes, the core of the school kit remains familiar. According to Epicentr’s representative, a student’s basket includes about 30 basic items needed at the start of the school year. However, even traditional categories are changing. For example, ordinary plasticine is increasingly giving way to foam-like products, and paper diaries are losing popularity due to schools moving to digital. Another change is the development of products that combine learning with additional benefits. A hit of the last season were thematic notebooks. Each notebook is dedicated to a specific school subject, and on additional pages contains useful information—for example, geometry formulas or a table of chemical elements. Epicentr manufactures them under its own Nota Bene label. This year many other manufacturers have presented a wide line of similar notebooks on their shelves. Zanarevska predicts that strong demand for thematic notebooks will continue. Stationery is becoming higher quality (photo: network press service). Epicentr representative also notes improvements in the quality and design of stationery goods. “The quality of goods has improved, and designs are more varied, because every manufacturer constantly tries to improve their product, many tests and trials are conducted,” she adds. Yes, a large backpack has fallen out of favor; it has been replaced by lighter rucksacks that retain an orthopedic back, significantly reducing weight and load on a child’s back and spine when carrying such a backpack. Yet the approach to buying backpacks is changing. This is one of the most expensive items in the school basket, so, according to the expert, in recent years parents increasingly buy a backpack separately from the main set of stationery, spreading costs over several months. “The amount spent on preparing a child for school has become more significant for family budgets in recent years, so parents often divide purchases over 2-3 months. As an option, you can buy a backpack after 1 September, when every year we start a crazy sale for up to -60% after the season,” notes the head of Epicentr’s stationery direction. “Write.Draw” – a separate space of goods for school, office, and hobby Epicentr also develops a specialized concept “Write.Draw,” which covers not only school stationery and has no seasonal “limits.” The Write.Draw space at Epicentr offers items for creativity (photo: network press service). Here there are products for the office, and the direction “Creativity and Hobby” is actively expanding. According to Zanarevska, this category already has about 12 thousand articles, including knitting supplies – a hobby that is becoming increasingly popular. The space also offers professional paints, drawing accessories, and much more. School fair offers on gadgets and more Since preparation for the new school year has gone far beyond stationery, Epicentr’s individual directions have their own offers up to 1 September for schoolchildren and their parents: Within the School Fair, the Tech Center runs a “Gadget Sale” with discounts up to 30% on laptops, tablets, etc.; the Furniture Center offers savings up to 40% on children’s and office furniture; Lighting and illumination for the workspace can be bought with savings in the Electrical space; Separate offers on clothing and footwear from EPIC are available; Attractive deals on sports goods for an active lifestyle are in InterSport. The School Fair features promotions not only on stationery (photo: network press service). Practical support for parents can also be provided by the state program “School Kit” for first-graders, available at Epicentr. Recall that a one-time aid of 5 thousand hryvnias can be spent on school supplies, children's clothing and footwear in participating stores. Security is another part of the school basket Ukrainian reality adds another category to the traditional school kit – safety goods. “Unfortunately, today we are obliged to worry first of all about the safety of our students, so a safety suitcase has become a mandatory attribute,” notes Zanarevska. Epicentr offers components of the safety suitcase (photo: network press service). The assortment includes small backpacks, reflective stickers, information-id badges, and you can also pick a convenient water bottle and lunchbox for a snack. It’s worth adding that as part of Epicentr’s social mission for the school season, the initiative “Shelter under Angels’ Wings” runs from 1 August to 30 September. The charitable initiative “Shelter under Angels’ Wings” at Epicentr (photo: network press service) Buyers can join in equipping school shelters by purchasing Epicentr goods with the special mark “Angel of Good Deeds.”

As a reminder, earlier RBK-Ukraine reported on how much it costs to prepare a child for school in 2026 year.