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Web posted Monday, August
9, 2004
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Shoppers at the
Tanger Outlets in Bluffton take advantage of the
tax-free shopping weekend.
Pete Marovich/Carolina
Morning News
| A
weekend less taxing
BLUFFTON: Shoppers crowd
stores for tax-free goods
By Jennifer Moore
Carolina Morning News
Armed
with back-to-school shopping lists, bargain
hunters braved U.S. 278 and packed parking lots in
hopes of last-minute deals Sunday, the end of a
three-day tax holiday.
At Old Navy, Laura
Helmly perused the sale racks, looking for school
clothes for her children.
Helmly, from
Rincon, Ga., said she had shopped the sales during
Georgia's tax-free weekend two weeks earlier but
was hoping to find a few more deals in South
Carolina during its state sales tax
holiday.
Michelle Glowney of Hilton Head
Island also stopped by Old Navy on
Sunday.
Glowney, flanked by 10-year-old son
Jason and 8-year-old son Justin, said she had
already secured the boys' school supplies but was
hoping to purchase more clothes before they headed
to class today.
Bluffton Staples General
Manager Martin Honan said the weekend's business
was "fantastic," partly because the holiday from
sales tax came directly before the return to
traditional-calendar schools in Beaufort and
Jasper counties.
But, he said, many of the
shoppers were from Savannah and other parts of
Georgia - possibly because tax-free exemptions are
different in South Carolina.
Besides
regular back-to-school essentials like pens,
notebooks and lined paper, Honan said laptop
computers sold very well on Friday, the first day
of the tax holiday.
Though the tax
holiday's date meant waiting until the eleventh
hour to purchase school supplies, Cathy Regan of
Bluffton said she didn't mind.
Regan -- who
bought items for children in third, eighth, ninth
and 10th grade -- said she always times her
shopping to coincide with the sales.
At
Target, shoppers navigated crowded aisles in
search of everything from lunchboxes and markers
to cleaning supplies and clothes.
Jane
Jachim and her three daughters were among them -
with a cart of pink folders, pens and other
necessities.
Jachim, of Charlotte, N.C.,
said she hadn't planned on buying the girls'
school supplies in the Palmetto State, but
realized they wouldn't get home in time to
purchase them in North Carolina.
Reporter
Jennifer Moore can be reached at 837-5255, ext.
122, or Jennifer.moore@lowcountrynow.com
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