What Retail Would You Bring to Huntsville? (Birmingham, Tuscaloosa: leases, amusement park)

[Keeper]

There is an outlet mall in Boaz which is about 50 miles from H'ville.

Boaz Outlet Malls

Boaz Alabama has Outlet Stores and more - Shop Boaz

[Bamachic80]

Unless they've built it back up, I remember not many stores being in Boaz on my last visit. Plus near Birmingham, there's the Visionland outlets.

[deesonic]

Boaz certainly ain't what it used to be.

[A&M Bulldawg]

How would a Tanger Outlet survive in Huntsville? Will it cause the failure of other area malls and shopping centers?

[friday13]

Originally Posted by A&M Bulldawg

How would a Tanger Outlet survive in Huntsville? Will it cause the failure of other area malls and shopping centers?

Are outlet malls for suckers?

[Mawoods]

I haven't been to an outlet mall in a long time that I thought had good value, etc. Even the one down in Ft. Lauderdale with all the designer outlets wasn't so great. If you shop well and look for sales you can do just as well. Of course there are always some exceptions but for the most part I think outlet malls are overated.

[Bamachic80]

It was just a thought. Huntsville has so much more than Tuscaloosa and we definitely didn't have outlet malls down there either.

[DavidH74]

the article is true. I had found the percentage at one time of how much of the product assortment at outlets is made just for the outlets -- either by the company or by someone carrying a license to manufacture under the label. It was an extremely high percentage.
A Banana Republic store carries very little cotton merchandise -- it's pima cotton, merino, cashmere, silk...The outlet is cotton, cotton, cotton at high prices.
Just a few weeks ago I found an irregular Polo RL blanket (ALL Polo "RL" (not to be confused with the real deal Polo Ralph Lauren label) is licensed in the first place) that I got at Marshalls for 19.99 on "sale" at the Polo outlet for 44.99. No thank you.
Obviously, you can find deals, but they are few and far between and I have zero use or respect for outlets. Cheap leather, cheap canvas, cheap cotton...high prices, tacky environments...
I'll wait for the department store sale or hit up Marshalls or MAINLY hit the sale room at Banana.

[DavidH74]

Not to be "tacky" myself, , but the whole issue of outlet merchandise being made for outlet malls exclusively is the reason there is no longer such as a thing as an "Old Navy Outlet" -- it's just the regular Old Navy's at the outlets now. Gap decided, righftully so, that they couldn't compromise the quality of the product any lower than the Old Navy brand. I'm not knocking Old Navy, but Gap themselves said this, so...

I always like how Big Lots has Little Lots. REALLY?!?!

[A&M Bulldawg]

Originally Posted by Bamachic80

It was just a thought. Huntsville has so much more than Tuscaloosa and we definitely didn't have outlet malls down there either.

I'm from down that way, and I can tell you that Tuscaloosa is behind Meridian, Decatur, and Dothan on retail. Tuscaloosa's main concern is the university. Huntsville's retail market is triple that of Tuscaloosa's and Huntsville is twice the size as Tuscaloosa. We all know that Huntsville doesn't has some stores that Tuscaloosa has, but Huntsville just slaughters Tuscaloosa with national retailers.

Just a joke, but will Huntsville just finally get a Wegmen's because the DC transplants are missing it?