The National Retail Federation has issued its 2009 back-to-school spending survey and the results show that the ringing of school bells won’t necessarily translate into the happy ringing of cash registers.

But the one part of stores where parents and students expect to boost their spending despite the ongoing recession is electronics.

The average family plans to spend $167.84 on consumer electronic purchases for back to school this year, up from $151.61 last year, according to the NRF survey.

Among college kids, spending on electronics or computer-related items is expected to increase to $266.08 from $211.89 last year.

Those trends are not lost on Wal-Mart.

On its own blog, Wal-Mart is talking about its plan to win sales from back-to-school shoppers:

“This year Wal-Mart Stores and Walmart.com have teamed up with Dell to offer you a Great deal on Laptops.

Starting this week, when you go and visit your local store you will see Colors everywhere, from Pink, Blue, Red, Indigo, Green, Yellow, White, Orange and everyones new fav. Purple! In total you will see allot {sic] of colors spread out into a array of products from everything needed in the dorm, apartment, bedroom, or the complete house!”

For those who many not want or may already have a purple laptop, Wal-Mart is also ready to wow shoppers with “color matching accessories” like speakers, mice, USB flash drives and hard drives.

Looks like even if overall back-to-school sales won’t be cheery, the consumer electronics sure will be!

(Screenshot of Walmart.com)