Back to School Sales Tax ‘Holiday’ Boosts Local Sales

The back-to-school shopping season brought a welcome spike in traffic and sales at Annandale stores, due in part to the "tax holiday" in Virginia from August 6-8. Shoppers continued to hit the stores as the first day of school approached, and at least one store manager expects to see a second buying peak once students receive specific stationery requirements form their teachers.

The three-day tax holiday for clothing and school supplies was popular with local shoppers, bringing them in strong numbers into stores large and small.

"It actually got really busy," said Ernest Boyd, manager of the Kmart store at 4251 John Marr Drive in Annandale.

Kmart has a large section for back-to-school supplies, as well as a significant portion of the store set aside for clothing, and both are high-traffic areas when families come in to prepare for the fall school season. Boyd said that composition notebooks, binder filler paper and glue sticks have been very popular this year.

In the apparel section of the store, Boyd said that parents were buying clothing for younger children. In particular, he said the Selena Gomez clothing collection has been a favorite for grade-school girls.

At Kmart, Boyd sees about a two-week window in August when school supplies are in high demand, followed by a second spike in September in response to specific classroom needs. After that, the back-to-school section is replaced with Halloween items.

Other stores, including some that you might not think are in the mainstream of the back-to-school season, have seen brisk traffic in stationery supplies. One example is the Bloom supermarket at 7000 Columbia Pike.

Bloom set up a back-to-school display at the front of the store and saw a strong reaction during the tax holiday.

"We went through a pallet of school supplies," said assistant manager Jorge De La Rosa, who pointed out that the store sold 70-page spiral notebooks for 25 cents during the three-day tax holiday.

Next door to Bloom at Treasure Trove Consignments, volunteer Chris Matos also reported eager back-to-school shoppers. The second-hand store, which is owned by Inova Fairfax Hospital, relies on donations of stationery products as well as used clothing, books, ceramics, jewelry and collectables.

"We get a lot of mothers that come here," Matos said. "Children's clothing and stationery go very quickly."

At Kmart, a steady flow of customers circled racks of cloths, often with small children in tow. One such customer was Alma Martinez of Annandale, who split her time between browsing the aisles and watching her three active sons.

"I'm mostly shopping for paper and notebooks," Martinez said, although she was spending a fair amount of time in the clothing section of the store.

Martinez's four children range from kindergarten to eighth grade, and she noted with clear interest that the kids go back to school on Sept. 7.