LITTLE ROCK — It's been a busy weekend for businesses in Little Rock and around the state of Arkansas. And they wouldn't have it any other way.
In accordance with Arkansas' first-ever "No Sale Tax" weekend, stores in Little Rock have been inundated with customers coming in for great deals on a number of items.
"The response has been really, really good," Joshua Tisdale, manager of the Target on University Avenue, said. "We've had a lot of people shopping for all kinds of things, taking advantage of the tax-free weekend. We've seen a significant spike in sales over last weekend. We're really excited about it."
Stores in the state are selling items such as clothes, food and school supplies with no sales tax charge added on, which has sent consumers sprinting to stores to take advantage of the two-day event.
All stores contacted said they saw a significant spike in sales over their Saturday and Sunday business hours.
While no stores contacted had sales numbers from the weekend available, the items in the highest demand were the obvious school clothes and supplies, with the new academic year beginning later this month. But the demand changed with the store in which customers bought their products.
At such retail-driven stores such as Dillard's and J.C. Penny, clothes such as jeans and school uniforms were the big sellers, while book bags and wide and college-rules paper were in high demand at stores such as Target.
"The response has been tremendous," Dillard's spokesman Julie Bull said. "We've had a great response by our customers and lots of excitement throughout our stores."
Some stores were also making small adjustments this weekend to better accommodate customers. Bull said that Dillard's extended their operating hours, staying open an additional hour on Sunday until 7 p.m.
Along with alterations to the store operation, the biggest change for all stores involved came in the additional manpower. Every store contacted beefed up the number of employees that worked the weekend for the increase in consumers that was expected.
"It was definitely an increase in traffic yes," Theresa McGavran, manager at the J.C. Penny on Shackleford Road, said, "We had planned for it, our other stores in other states have done it in the past so we contacted them to find out how in big it was in other areas. So we planned for it, and we beefed up staffing and we had everybody working so we could have more associates to take care of customers. We prepared for the best."
McGavran also added that along with the school uniforms, novelty t-shirts were a big hit with the consumers and boosted in sales as well.
Regional and national chain stores in the area were also aided by contacting other stores in states such as Alabama, Louisiana and Florida that have had No Sales Tax weekend sales.
"We definitely expected it," Tisdale, who transferred to the University Ave. Target from a store in Alabama, said. "We were gearing up our staff for it. We've seen this, not with Target's around here, but other Target's in our group have tax free weekends, so we were expecting to have increased business."
One of the more surprising observations may have come even before the weekend sale. All stores contacted said they didn't witness any decrease in sales in the week leading up to the big sale weekend, meaning customers didn't wait until the weekend to buy all their necessities.
But that didn't keep the parking lots from staying full this weekend. With stores such as J.C. Penny running their own sales — and also offering coupons — along with the state-wide temporary sales tax stoppage.