Examples include Old Navy, Merrell, Famous Footwear, Sunglass Hut, and American Eagle Outfitters.īy knowing the differences between these 3 types of stores, you can shop knowing exactly what potential deals you’ll find within. The deals found at these locations often mirror exactly what you’ll find in your local shopping mall. Conventional Retail – These are simply regular retail stores dressed up to appear like an outlet location.Popular examples of “real” outlet stores include REI, Coldwater Creek, and Lands’ End. These outlet stores often have the best deals on first quality products. Products are usually overstocks, or have small dents, scratches, or blemishes on them. Actual Outlet Stores – These stores sell items that were originally in the conventional retail location.Popular factory stores include Coach, Nike, Brooks Brothers, J.Crew, Calvin Klein, GAP, Banana Republic, Burlington Coat, and Tommy Hilfiger. Clothing and apparel is often of lesser quality. Factory Stores – These are stores located within an Outlet Mall that sell items made specifically for the Factory Store.Here are the 3 main types of “Outlet” stores: If you’re going to have an outlet location, at the very least take last season’s merchandise, poke some holes in it, mark the tag with a Sharpie, and lower the price by 20%. Everything else is either the same stuff found in regular retail locations, or cheap stuff made specifically for the outlet or factory store. The actual percent of merchandise found in most outlet locations, that are either irregulars or factory seconds, is around 1% to 5%.
What the heck is the point? Shoppers are eventually going to catch on (if they haven’t already). Some have the exact same merchandise, at what appears to be the exact same price, which is really odd to me.
Just because a store looks like an outlet, has an outlet bathroom, smells like an outlet, and has outlet employees, doesn’t mean the prices are any better than their regular retail location. The biggest takeaway from my family trip to the outlets was that you have to be really careful about the pricing. In case you were wondering, I looked up the word “anxious” in the smart-ass dictionary and it means, “driving Mom and Dad crazy and making them want to saddle up to the bar at Chili’s.” But anyways, here are the ways to maximize your savings when shopping at an outlet or factory location. I almost said “screw this” as I drove the minivan around and around looking for an empty stall with 3 kids in the back who were getting “anxious” to get out. The stars quickly seemed to be exploding as the parking lot was TOTALLY packed. The stars all seemed aligned when I recently pulled the minivan into the Vacaville Outlets as we had a couple extra hours to do a little shopping before we finished our drive to visit friends in the San Francisco bay area.
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