Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Retailers report steady sales

It looks like customers from across the region are taking advantage of New Mexico’s tax-free holiday, keeping local retailers busy Saturday.

Stores in Clovis and Portales reported brisk business.

Bealls Department Store in Portales saw a steady stream of shoppers.

Portales resident Karla Lee bought shoes and school supplies for her two daughters.

“We do this every year,” Lee said. “It is a little bit of a savings.”

Lee finished her day of shopping at Bealls, after going to Creighton’s Town & County and Wal-Mart.

“It’s all right, we’ve had some traffic come through here,” said Bealls’ Assistant Manager Natashia Fetterman. “It has been pretty steady. I wouldn’t say we’ve busy like we want to be, it’s been steady though.”

Fetterman said the store sold mostly shoes and clothing.

“I don’t even know if people knew it was a tax-free weekend,” Fetterman said. “We’ve had some people come in saying they didn’t know about it.”

Coli Hunt, manager at Joe’s Boot Shop in Clovis, said they were having a store-wide sale for tax-free weekend.

“We’ve had a lot of business, it was a lot busier than it was yesterday,” Hunt said. “I don’t know if they knew it was going on or not. Today we have been busy from the word go.”

Joe’s most popular items with customers has been the straw hats and boots.

Cynnamonn Fletcher and her husband David of Plainview, Texas, were in Clovis to visit a friend and decided to checkout Joe’s while looking for clothes for their daughter.

“I think the tax-free weekend was a good idea, everybody needs a break,” Fletcher said. “Especially around this time of time year.”

Erika Meadows of Raton stopped at Joe’s for clothes for her children and to drop off her two oldest at Eastern New Mexico University.

Meadows said she’s finished buying school supplies and it was time to shop for clothes.

“We’re working on clothes now, some places have pretty good sales,” Meadows said. “We’re about done. We’ve been to Wal-Mart and the mall, lots of stores in the mall and then here, which is probably our last stop.”

The tax-free weekend wraps up on Sunday in New Mexico.