Anyone else here remember when outlets were actually outlets? They offered overstock or unsold merchandise or seconds with slight manufacturing defects.
The wife and I took a baby-moon this past weekend with kiddo #3 due to arrive in 11 days. There were some outlets near where we were staying and we decided to go check them out since my my wife was still wanting some baby clothes and they had a Carter's. While we were there, I hopped into a Clark's shoe store to see if they had any good sales going on. I found a pair of shoes I really liked but wasn't sure on the price. I found out all the shoes were $79/pair or $89 for 2 pair. I thought this was completely stupid. First, I didn't need two pair of shoes. Second, even though $89 for two pair of nice shoes isn't a bad deal, I just hated the gimmick. I wasn't desperate for a new pair anyway. Out of curiosity, I took a picture of the tag and looked the shoes up online. Zappos and Amazon both have the exact same shoe for $51.
Even though I know in my head that outlets have long since ceased to be any kind of bargain shopping option, there's still a part of me that can't shake that "let's go to the outlets for a deal" mindset. Heck my wife looked at a dress in the Polo store that was $300. If you catch things JUST right, you can still get some pretty crazy deals at outlets, but for routine shopping, they obviously aren't any different than just shopping in regular stores. For that matter, outlets are just regular stores in terms of pricing. The one thing outlets have is that they tend to offer the greatest concentration of clothing stores in one location, which can be convenient but not money-saving.
I'm reminded of why I do most of my clothes shopping (when I do it) at TJ Maxx these days.
The wife and I took a baby-moon this past weekend with kiddo #3 due to arrive in 11 days. There were some outlets near where we were staying and we decided to go check them out since my my wife was still wanting some baby clothes and they had a Carter's. While we were there, I hopped into a Clark's shoe store to see if they had any good sales going on. I found a pair of shoes I really liked but wasn't sure on the price. I found out all the shoes were $79/pair or $89 for 2 pair. I thought this was completely stupid. First, I didn't need two pair of shoes. Second, even though $89 for two pair of nice shoes isn't a bad deal, I just hated the gimmick. I wasn't desperate for a new pair anyway. Out of curiosity, I took a picture of the tag and looked the shoes up online. Zappos and Amazon both have the exact same shoe for $51.
Even though I know in my head that outlets have long since ceased to be any kind of bargain shopping option, there's still a part of me that can't shake that "let's go to the outlets for a deal" mindset. Heck my wife looked at a dress in the Polo store that was $300. If you catch things JUST right, you can still get some pretty crazy deals at outlets, but for routine shopping, they obviously aren't any different than just shopping in regular stores. For that matter, outlets are just regular stores in terms of pricing. The one thing outlets have is that they tend to offer the greatest concentration of clothing stores in one location, which can be convenient but not money-saving.
I'm reminded of why I do most of my clothes shopping (when I do it) at TJ Maxx these days.