TUPELO - Move over Black Friday, there's a new biggest shopping day in town.

Jeff Snyder, manager of The Mall at Barnes Crossing, said the tax-free weekend Friday and Saturday broke a lot of shopping and traffic records.

Universally known as the busiest shopping day of the year, Synder said Black Friday has nothing on the tax-free weekend. Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving when retailers open their doors to provide deals to early-bird shoppers.

"We had a store to do $70,000 just yesterday," Synder said on Saturday afternoon. "Several stores have reported beating Black Friday numbers already. Unlike Black Friday, the no-tax day goes on all day long. Black Friday has the early-bird door busters that everyone rush in for, but after that the deals are usually gone. I think that's why this has been so much more busy, because the traffic is steady throughout the day because the deal lasts."

Synder said all the numbers from the weekend will be tallied Monday.

Traffic headed north on Gloster Street was backed up as far as the eye could see. The Highway 45 off ramp to the mall also was bumper to bumper. By 11 a.m., Snyder said thousands of shoppers already were roaming the mall for deals.

Seven dollars on every $100 doesn't seem like a lot to some people, but it is for Ripley's Joanne Sally, a single mom. Sally has four sons that range from ages 6 to 16.

"Just think, that's four pairs of shoes, pants and four shirts," she said. "And we haven't even gotten into school supplies and underclothes yet. I needed this tax-free break because $7 adds up when you count it times four."

While thousands flocked to the mall area for the tax holiday on Saturday, some opted to head downtown for back-to-school shopping.

Janice Pierce spent much of her morning battling bumper-to-bumper traffic on Mall Drive just trying to get into the mall parking lot. But after 35 minutes of inch-by-inch driving and another 30 minutes looking for a parking space, Pierce said she decided to go a different route from everyone else and headed to Main Street.

"The mall does have a lot more variety, but it's not worth getting stepped on and elbowed for a few pairs of jeans," she said, holding a bag from Reed's Department Store. "There are people downtown too, but it's a very comfortable crowd. No one is rushed and I had no problem parking."

Less crowded

Citi Trends on South Gloster Street also was another option for people who didn't want to deal with mall traffic. Even though the store was packed, Marcus Tillman said it was nothing like he'd seen at the mall.

"I went to the mall at 9 this morning and it was packed then," said Tillman, who's from Booneville. "My friend told me about Citi Trends, so we came on down here to check out what they had. It was a little more crowded than I liked in there, but after dealing with the mall crowd, it was not too much for me to handle."

Even though only back-to-school items were included in the tax-free holiday, Synder said people bought much more than that.

"People were just shopping," he said. "They took full advantage of the no tax, but they bought a lot of things not included in it. I saw people with receipts totaling more than $700. This numbers are going to be mind-blowing once we tally everything up Monday."

Contact Danza Johnson at (662) 678-1583 or danza.johnson@djournal.com.