Devonshire Mall says the back-to-school shopping season has been busy since the beginning of August, with families stocking up on essentials for the new school year. Backpacks and footwear remain among the hottest sellers, with stores throughout the mall seeing strong demand from shoppers. Marketing Manager Tina Asprakis says while shopping starts earlier every year, many parents and students are now making their final purchases before classes begin. “The most popular items, backpacks are a big thing. Everybody’s very particular about their backpacks, footwear. I was just in Sport Chek the other day, extremely busy. DSW, extremely busy. ALDO, all of your runners from Foot Locker, Champs, runners are a big thing,” Asprakis said. Asprakis says one of the mall’s newest attractions is Kiokii and ..., a Korean beauty retailer that has quickly become popular with younger shoppers. She adds many retailers are also offering discounts and special promotions ahead of the first day of school. “There’s quite a few promotions right now. I know that Bentley had a promotion on their backpacks, DSW on quite a few runners, and then there’s other tenants also. H&M had quite a few promotions, The Children’s Place, so many different promotions and actually most of them are listed on our promotions page. The tenants are very good at uploading those promotions,” Asprakis said. For those still needing to cross items off their back-to-school list, Asprakis recommends planning trips around the busiest shopping periods by visiting early or later in the day to beat crowds. “The earlier the better. So as soon as the shopping centre opens, we are open for Labour Day, 11 a.m to 6 p.m., so if you still need something the day before school, you can still grab it. And about an hour or two before closing, it starts to simmer before dinner. So I think that that would be a better time too,” she said. Asprakis says overall mall traffic is tracking about 10 per cent higher than last year, and she expects that trend to continue through the busy Labour Day weekend. The mall opens at 10 a.m. Monday to Friday. On Sunday it opens at 11 a.m., and on Labour Day Monday, the mall is open from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m.
