Factory Luxury Store V. Retail Luxury Store - Which is Better?

Brand name outlet and factory stores use to be the dumping grounds for irregular, damaged and past-season clothing. Fortunately, this is no longer the case, a number of major retail brands have raised the bar on their factory store offerings and have introduced some of this falls most fashionable must have clothes and accessories.

Brooks Brothers Factory Store 

You can travel to any outlet mall destination in the United States and you will find iconic luxury brands such as Nike, Ralph Lauren, Last Call Neiman Marcus, Off 5th Sachs 5th Avenue, Brooks Brothers Factory Store, Coach, Tommy Hilfiger and Anne Taylor. Furthermore, many of these brands now carry their own exclusive lines of merchandise such as Off 5th's RED, BLUE, BLACK and GREY LABELS and Brooks Brothers Factory label "346" in addition to still carrying  some overstock from their respective regular retail stores.

 

Occasionally, consumers bring up the question of quality as it pertains to the differences between 

Brooks Brothers Factory Store

retail stores and outlet stores; howbeit, certainly true that retail clothing is manufactured at a higher level of quality and the raw materials are more exclusive, the price for each is unquestionably compatible. To settle the argument, I suggest that if you prefer luxury brands over non-brand items, it is in your best interest to shop at the stores that are going to give you the greatest amount of quality that you can afford with your resources.  Secondly, most people can hardly discern the difference anyway, and will in many cases blanket you with complements at the mere mentioning of the brand's name.   

 

The history of Outlet Malls in United States:

According to a web-base source, outlet malls first appeared in the Eastern United States in the 1930s. Factory stores started to offer damaged or excess goods to employees at a low price. After some time, the audience expanded to non-employees as well. In 1936, Anderson-Little (a men's clothing brand) opened an outlet store independent of its existing factories. Until the 1970s, the primary purpose of outlet stores was to dispose of excess or damaged goods.

In 1974, Vanity Fair opened up the first multi-store outlet center in Reading, Pennsylvania. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Outlet malls experienced strong growth. The average outlet mall is opened with between 100,000 to 200,000 square feet of retail space. This can gradually increase up to 500,000 to 600,000 feet. The average outlet mall has an area of 216,000 feet. In 2003, outlet malls generated $15 billion in revenue from 260 stores nationwide.

The number of malls in the 90s increased from 113 in 1988 to 276 in 1991 and to 325 in 1997 and 472 in 2013 . Outlet malls are not an exclusively American phenomenon. In Europe, retailer BAA McArthurGlen has opened 13 malls with over 1,200 stores and 3 million square feet of retail space. Stores have also been emerging in Japan since the mid to late 1990s.