Area retailers expecting big weekend because of sales tax holiday

Shoppers loading up on school supplies will find additional savings this weekend as part of Missouri's back-to-school sales tax holiday.

Beginning 12:01 a.m. Friday and ending midnight Sunday, the state's 4.225 percent sales tax won't be assessed on school supplies, computer items or clothing.

"This is a big weekend for us," said Alisha Obermann, a customer solutions manager at Best Buy. "We're going to see a lot of customers."

In addition to state sales tax suspension, Jackson will waive its 1.5 percent sales on back-to-school goods as part of the holiday. While the city will not see any revenue from its sales tax this weekend, Mayor Barbara Lohr said the waiving of the tax may bring new faces to the city.

"We wanted to give consumers seeking school supplies a break and give people an incentive to come to Jackson," she said.

Cape Girardeau County will also do away with its 1 percent sales tax this weekend.

City sales tax will still be applied in Cape Girardeau, largely because of rough economic times, city manager Scott Meyer said. Cape Girardeau could stand to lose $50,000 to $70,000 if it waived its 2.75 percent sales tax, Meyer said.

"It's a council decision we've been happy with," Meyer said, noting that the city opted out of the holiday last year. "There's a projected reduction in revenue, so we decided against it."

At The Children's Place in West Park Mall, employees frantically assembled mannequins and set up displays for the store's Friday grand opening. The infant clothing store was slated to open Aug. 8, but manager Cindy Armstrong and the district manager opted to open it Friday to coincide with the holiday.

"We're expecting a ton of people," Armstrong said. "This is the only store of its kind here, and people are going to want to shop regardless."

While clothing, backpacks and traditional school supplies may be obvious targets for deal-seeking back-to-school shoppers, computers will bring in the most money this weekend, said Patrick Strothmann, an assistant manager at Staples. The store's corporate office will cover the Cape Girardeau sales tax, so the store's items will be completely tax-free this weekend.

"Laptops and tablets are going to be hot commodities," Strothmann said. "People have been waiting for this weekend to buy computers."

Tablets at Best Buy will be especially popular among shoppers because of the recent success of the iPad and other tablet computers, Obermann said.

"This has really been the first year for tablets, so we have no projections on how many we'll sell," she said. "But it should be a lot."

J.C. Penney manager Sarah Grigaitis her store may see a few more customers this weekend than she did during last year's tax-free weekend because Illinois opted not to have a back-to-school holiday tax break this year. Last year, the state implemented a 10-day tax break on back-to-school items, Grigaitis said.

"We may see our fair share of people from Illinois," she said. "It's still quite the drive for some people, but it may be worth it."

Grigaitis said the holiday may help ease the pain some residents have felt in recent months.

"People have had a lot on their plate recently with the heat and the flooding," she said. "This will be a nice little break from all that."

A complete list of taxing entities not participating and qualifying sales tax exempt purchases can be found online at www.dor.mo.gov.