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An outlet mall, or outlet centre, is a type of shopping mall in which manufacturers sell their products directly to the public through their own branded stores. Other stores in such a mall may include the off-price locations of department stores and closeout retailers, but the defining tenants are the manufacturers' own stores — the factory stores — whose presence distinguishes an outlet mall from an ordinary shopping center of independent retailers.
An outlet mall (or outlet centre) is a type of shopping mall, in which manufacturers sell their products directly to the public through their own branded stores. Other stores in outlet malls are operated by retailers selling returned goods and discontinued products, often at heavily reduced prices. Clothing, sporting goods, electrical products, cosmetics, and toys are among the types of items sold at outlet malls.
Outlet malls first appeared in the United States as a development of the traditional factory outlet: a store attached to a factory or warehouse, selling surplus stock at discounted prices. An outlet mall places several such outlets under one roof in a convenient location, usually an "out-of-town" site. The out-of-town site minimises overhead costs. And they may be legally necessary as conventional retailers may have contractual restrictions on the manufacturer on the location of the factory outlets so as to minimise competition with the traditional retailer. Therefore, factory outlets are usually located at least 20 kilometers outside of major cities, and consumers must account for gasoline costs and driving time when calculating their net savings.
Outlet malls have since spread to the European Union and to many other parts of the world. During the early 2000s, the U.K. company McArthurGlen opened the first outlet malls in Italy (Milan and Rome) and Portugal (Lisbon).
| The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/outlet_mall). 10/9/06 Above article modified by Apparel Search |
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The Factory Store, Multiplied by a HundredAn outlet mall begins with a simple multiplication: take the factory store — one manufacturer's own shop selling its goods directly — and put a hundred of them side by side in one planned center. The shopper gains a day's worth of brand-direct bargain hunting in one trip, and each manufacturer gains traffic drawn by all the others, exactly the mutual benefit that powers any shopping mall. The format usually announces itself in the architecture: outlet centers are commonly open-air, arranged as a village, a strip or a loop of storefronts with surface parking, built more cheaply than enclosed regional malls because the draw is price rather than spectacle. The tenant mix rounds out the factory stores with department store outlets, off-price chains and closeout sellers, all speaking the same language of marked-down merchandise. The merchandise model has layers. The historic factory outlet sold what its name says: overruns, seconds with minor flaws, samples, and stock left over when the regular retail season ended. As outlet malls grew from a clearance channel into a major retail sector during the late 20th century, most large brands began treating their outlet divisions as businesses in their own right, sourcing some goods specifically for outlet sale while continuing to flow clearance and past-season products through the same stores. Shoppers learned to read the difference in quality and in the labels, and the value question — how much of the full-price article the outlet article really is — became part of outlet shopping literacy. Location Logic and the Day TripOutlet malls were traditionally planted at a calculated distance from metropolitan full-price retail: near enough to draw a day's excursion, far enough that a discounted store would not undercut the brand's own city shops or the department stores that were its wholesale customers. Highway sites near tourist routes became standard, and the largest centers turned into destinations in themselves, with tour buses and international visitors treating a day at the outlets as an itinerary item. The economics follow the format's promise to both sides: tenants pay lower rents than in prestige malls and move volume, while landlords fill a format that thrives in both strong economies, when brands expand, and weak ones, when shoppers trade down to discounts. As a definition, the outlet mall stays distinct from its parts and its neighbors: an outlet store is the single shop, an outlet mall is the center that groups manufacturers' own stores together, and an off-price mall tenant is not by itself an outlet in the strict sense. The British term outlet centre names the same thing. Together with the factory store tradition it descends from, the outlet mall is the physical home of manufacturer-direct discount retailing — a mall where the middleman is not merely discounted but absent, because the maker is the merchant. Common QuestionsWhat is an outlet mall?An outlet mall is a type of shopping mall in which manufacturers sell their products directly to the public through their own branded stores. The stores are typically factory outlet stores offering discounted prices. How is an outlet mall different from a regular mall?A regular mall's stores are retailers selling goods made by others at full retail markup. In an outlet mall the anchor tenants are manufacturers selling their own products directly, historically surplus, seconds and past-season stock, at lower prices. Why are outlet malls often located outside city centers?Outlet malls traditionally located at a distance from a brand's full-price stores so discounted selling would not compete directly with them or with the department stores carrying the same brands, and land for large open-air centers was cheaper. More to Explore
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