Luxury Brands Focus on Outlet Shops

This post on RetailWire highlights how several luxury brands are beginning to shift their focus from their retail mall locations to outlet shops which include overstocks, canceled orders, and many of the same goods found at retail mall locations but of lesser quality.

Outlet malls are seeing much more traffic now and companies like Kate Spade, Lucky Brand Jeans, Juicy Couture and True Religion are among some of the high end brands that are moving into the outlet space to get a piece of the action. Will these companies see the tremendous success that Coach has seen in their outlets?

Shopping malls having to readjust to new shopper needs

In a recent article at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, they discuss how the malls in Pittsburgh are currently struggling with the current high amount of vacancies. Not only are they facing chains going out of business, such as Boscov's and KB Toys, but they also have less consumers who don't have expendable money for shopping. The article states that as many as 2000 to 3000 malls could go bankrupt this year.

As a result, malls are trying to find new ways to bring customers into their stores. Another potential option for under-performing malls could be a "de-malling," Mr. Ackerman said. That strategy, he said, has worked for North Hills Village, which has transformed itself over the years from a mall into a big box center that includes Best Buy, Target and Kohl's.

Read the article here. What do you think about the current state of malls? Will they find a way to readjust and make it through the current economic downturn?