With classes starting next week, shopping for school supplies during the annual sales tax-free weekend topped a number of residents’ “to do” lists.

“We had a lot of college students with all of the dorm move-ins,” said Paul Jenkins, a manager at Best Buy off Loop 288.

Texas took a three-day break from charging state and local sales taxes for clothing and shoes, but other kinds of retailers saw increased sales too.

At Best Buy, top items included laptops, MP3 players and all of the accessories, not to mention gaming equipment, Jenkins said.

At Staples, just down the road, construction paper and glue were top items, along with notebook paper and index cards. The office supply store went through its first sales tax holiday weekend since opening late last year.

“It was pretty busy,” said Dusty Little­field, assistant manager. “We had quite a bit of stuff for sale, but we stayed in stock through the last day.”

Also in the city’s southeastern shopping district, SuperTarget’s parking lot filled with cars during the tax holiday.

“It was a very busy weekend,” said John Vinson, manager of the store off Brinker Road and Loop 288. Sales for dorm-room gear were “phenomenal,” he said, adding that microwaves and other dorm set-up supplies were in hot demand with about 40,000 students returning to the University of North Texas and Texas Woman’s University this fall.

Other top items included such basics as socks and underwear.

At Golden Triangle Mall, traffic was fairly steady during the three-day sales tax holiday.

“Most stores saw increases,” said Aida Zihuatanejo, marketing manager. “A lot of stores are feeling the growth from the traffic versus last year.”

Several department store officials said they believed some people waited to make purchases until the tax-free weekend.

At Payless, a shoe store chain, sales topped last year’s numbers by 3:30 p.m., Zihuatanejo said — far surpassing the store’s goal.

Other retailers in the market said they saw the traffic, but not necessarily all of them saw the benefits, mainly because of the focus on school items.

“Since we’re a furniture store, tax-free weekend does not really increase volume in our store,” said Bill Thomas, owner of Thomas’ Ethan Allen Home Interiors on Denton’s downtown Square.

Karen Wilson, owner of Country Kitchen City Cooks and Courthouse Collection, said she saw pretty good traffic, though the store does not typically sell school-related items.

“I would say it was just an average weekend,” she said.

Other department stores said sales were about the same as last year or better, despite the economic challenges a number of people have faced with higher gasoline, utility and food prices.

Vinson said the store saw stronger sales this weekend than at the same time last year.

“We had an increase over last year,” he said. “Sales have been very strong here in Denton.”

Staff writers Lori Forgay and Arlinda Arriaga contributed to this report.

DAWN COBB can be reached at 940-566-6879. Her e-mail address is dcobb@dentonrc.com .