Unfortunately, made for outlet products aren t always on par with their regular store equivalents. They can be made of cotton instead of wool or lack details such as reinforced buttonholes. Shell recommends inspecting tags for the letter F (for factory outlet) and checking the model number of small appliances online (a product modified for the outlet may have a different model number).
Categories: Black Friday 2011 Tags: Outlet, Video
The site also bans stores with poor customer service. Plus, you can sign up for e mail or RSS alerts for products or stores you re interested in and get gift ideas from the site.
Categories: Black Friday 2011 Tags: Service, Video
Traveling and shopping go hand in hand. According to the U.S. Travel Association, half of leisure travelers went shopping during their 2009 trips. So it s no surprise outlets are trying to become mini tourist destinations. For Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, the country s second biggest owner of outlet malls, that means giving gift cards to bus drivers and tour planners every time they bring a group and about 10,000 buses a year stop at its Barstow, Calif., location alone, says Carrie Geldner, senior VP of marketing. For Premium Outlets, owned by real estate giant Simon Property Group, it means offering outright cash According to its Web site, it gives a $1,000 prize each quarter to the travel agency or tour operator that brings the most visitors to its centers.
Categories: Black Friday 2011 Tags: Car, Outlet, Video
The outreach extends to partnering with airlines and participating in international trade shows, says Karen Fluharty, until recently senior VP of marketing for Prime Outlets. (Simon Property Group recently inked a deal to buy a majority of Prime s properties.)
Categories: Black Friday 2011 Tags: Outlet, Video
This summer Ken Tisdel saw a deal on Gilt.com, a site that offers luxury items at huge discounts for very short windows of time. The terms more than 70 percent off on Invicta watches, but only for shoppers who acted within three days. Ken called his sister, and within minutes she had bought more than a dozen, mostly for her husband. By now Ken has bought everything from luggage to perfume on the site, and he says the purchase process often triggers an adrenaline rush; after all, the deals can sell out incredibly quickly. You ve got to be ready to buy, he says.
Categories: Black Friday 2011 Tags: Video
The number of outlet malls abroad is growing. Since 2006, at least 28 have been built in China, with 15 more slated for construction this year. In Europe there are 148, says Brendon O Reilly, head of the European Outlet Retailers and Developers Association. And he expects that number to double by 2020. European outlet malls tend to stock fewer made for outlet goods because of a continentwide undercapacity of outlets, he says, and some landlords prohibit such goods anyway. So shoppers there know they are getting the real thing. Plus, in certain countries like Germany, Belgium and Switzerland, it is illegal to show two prices on any item at the same time, he says, so shoppers are protected from deceptive reference pricing.
Categories: Black Friday 2011 Tags: Outlet, Video
Think of it as the online equivalent of the entire city of Omaha converging on a single department store. Back in August, the big retailer Gap decided to go where few large retailers have gone before using a popular discount Web site to hold a nationwide sale. Shoppers had 24 hours to go online at Groupon.com and buy half price shopping vouchers good for everything from jeans to trendy messenger bags. And quite a few did; at one point more than 1,200 people a minute were snaring the coupons, so many that the site that arranged the flash sale had to redirect some shoppers and tell them to come back later. But by day s end, almost 450,000 potential customers had bought into the deal.
Categories: Black Friday 2011 Tags: Video
The competition among Black Friday bargains is expected to be brutal this year, with as many as 138 million shoppers trolling for deals that day 4 million more than were projected last year, according to a forecast by the National Retail Federation.
Categories: Black Friday 2011 Tags: Video
These changes mean outlets are no longer a place to dump the crummy stuff, says Anne Coughlan, a marketing professor at Northwestern s Kellogg School of Management. In fact, 82% of products at outlet centers are made specifically for the outlets, says NPD Group retail analyst Marshal Cohen.
Categories: Black Friday 2011 Tags: Outlet, Video
That s where price comparison sites do their best work If a specialty electronics retailer is remaindering items, you ll know about it.
Categories: Black Friday 2011 Tags: Electronics, Video
