Confessions Of An Outlet Shopper

Back in the day there was a time when bragging about how much you spent on something was cool.  I can recall dozens of  moments where I was amidst a conversation that began with, “Aren’t these shoes the bomb?!?!  I spent a fortune on them…more than I should have, but when people see me in these!”  I usually faked a smile hoping that it was enough to give the impression that I shared the same excitement.  I would mentally sigh, shake my head and look down at my casual thong sandals that I had happily bought on clearance for under $10.00.  I was proud that my sandals didn’t require monthly payments and an obnoxious interest rate.

Where I lived,  there weren’t too many places to shop and serious bargain hunting required me to travel to the malls in the larger cities.  I knew precisely which stores to hit and what time of year to hit them.  It was a science…a well planned out calculation of codes, numbers, dates and lists.  To go or not to go.  To buy or not to buy.  Should I grab it now or wait?  It was a game of chance.  It was a shoppers Russian roulette.  In the end, I save.  I win.  And, to those who would listen, I would brag.

Down the road something changed.  People woke up and realized that the area I lived in was a heavy tourist attraction in the Summer and Fall.  The tourists wanted something more than chain restaurants to eat at, a pretty lake to look at, overpriced lake house rentals and the usual New Hampshire souvenirs.  They wanted to shop.  It was then that the Tilton Factory Outlets was born; a huge shoppers paradise that offered nothing but outlet stores…and lots of them.  It was like taking all of the stores at the mall on the best day to shop for deals and putting them into one place.  It was a bargain hunters haven for year round deals.

I remember my first visit there and the amazement of how large this outlet plaza was.  I got out of the car, sucked in my breath and just stood there with my mouth hanging down to the ground.  Time stood still.  My eyeballs shifted from one end of the outlet to the other.  Where do I start?  There must have been at least 50 stores.  Breath in.  Breath out.  I shivered at the excitement.  People starred at me.  Is she okay?  Yes.  I was having a moment.  It was better than…okay, you get the picture.

The trend quickly spread and outlet malls and plazas were popping up everywhere.  The malls were a thing of the past.  I no longer needed to cling to that fine science.  It became simple.  I could get great deals all the time at the outlets.  Conversations shifted too.  It was no longer cool to brag about how much you paid for something.  People were no longer impressed.  They didn’t care.  They shifted their attention to those that bragged about how much money they saved.  I could finally, with enthusiasm and no fake smiles, participate in these conversations.

With time, and a large dose of modern technology, came the ease of online shopping and retailers got the hint that people wanted to save money and get the some killer deals online that were offered in the stores.  We love the sales and the online clearance pages, but how about those year round deals that didn’t require the hit or miss threat?  They listened.  Over the past couple of years more and more of the online retail stores are now offering outlet pages…a bargain shoppers dream!

What does that mean for you?  It means you can get amazing deals year round on just about everything while saving up to 95%!  Which stores have outlet selections? A lot of them do.  Don’t have the time to click on your favorite stores and find out?  Well, we’ve done that for you.  DealTaker has over 1800 stores and searching for the stores that have outlet pages takes time, but so far, we’ve found 100 of them for you!  It’s an ongoing project, but we are determined to find them all!  And, we will.  So, while we’re searching, why not check out what we have so far.  Happy shopping my friends.