Value Retail News is ICSC's publication featuring extensive and complete insight into the world of outlet and off-price rettsailers shopping centers. Here's a list of this month's articles and a summary of the stories.

OCTOBER Cover Story Features Global Outlets Off-Price

Features VRN Awards Value Retail News has again received journalism honors from the Florida Magazine Association that laud the 19-year-old publication’s graphic design and writing. Outlet Bound’s On-line Consumer Survey Figuring that its Web site was the perfect place to query consumers on what they think about outlet shopping, Outlet Bound has been surveying clickers and browsers since 1998. The results, published for the first time anywhere by VRN, reveal consumers’ habits, trends and opinions on outlet shopping.

Belz Factory Outlet World Canovanas Soft Opening in August Belz Enterprises’ much-anticipated project in Puerto Rico held a sensational soft-opening in August, drawing throngs of shoppers who played happy tunes on retailers’ cash registers. Lining Up at the Job Fair Finding top-notch sales associates and store managers is always difficult – especially so when there are cultural, language and legal differences – a job fair that would draw 2,500 applicants proved to be a healthy start.

Clicking Through to Shoppers
Charter Oak Partners, the nation’s largest independent owner and operator of outlet centers, is reporting strong response to two summertime e-mail campaigns launched with the help of a company that specializes in such promotions, Inbox Interactive.

Effective Direct Mail
With a growing number of outlet tenants and their landlords developing opt-in e-mail programs – sometimes called permission marketing — on their Web sites, VRN recently asked Teri Dahlbeck for some pointers on creating and maintaining this relatively new form of marketing.

These 9 Errors Can Spoil the Outcome
Based on many years of hands-on experience, guest columnist Michele Fitzpatrick discusses nine common errors that often surface when testing direct-marketing campaigns.

Retail Marketing: Art or Science?
Guest Columnist Charles Clark makes a case for blending both the art and the science of outlet retail marketing so that no one gets caught in the old fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants or analysis-paralysis bind.

Largest Centers Report
Exclusive VRN research on the nation’s largest outlet projects, those that are 400,000 sf or larger, reveals some interesting findings from this portfolio, including their profitability and percentage of the industry’s total GLA.

Outlet-Center Acquisitions Round-up
If it seems that outlet centers are constantly changing hands, the perception is somewhat true: Since January three projects have found new owners, and 30 other centers (28 from one developer) were scheduled to be sold by the end of September.

Bringing Home the Prodigal Customer
It’s a fact. Every year, the average firm loses 20 to 40 percent of its customers. When a long-time customer defects, the negative effect on profit is substantial. Guest columnists Jill Griffin and Michael Lowenstein roll out four solid ways to bring back the best of your lost shoppers.

Those Illusive Sales PSF
Although outlet-center developers no longer supply ICSC with same-space sales data, VRN continues to get questions about the industry’s performance. A review of the reported sales of the three outlet center REITs, whose portfolios total 99 U.S. projects, adds a little perspective to the issue.

Global Outlets European Report Outlet-center development within Europe has shown marked increases since about the mid-‘90s, according to the recently released 450-page bilingual edition of the European Factory-Outlet-Center Report released by Institut Fur Gewerbezentren. UK Report Gretna Gateway has a new owner; centers in the Midlands are recovering from the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, and Poole Pottery’s idea for an outlet project is being met locally with open arms. Those stories and much more in VRN’s coverage of the outlet community in Europe.

Off-price
Jersey Gardens’ Skills-with-Counseling Center
The Retail Skills Center at Glimcher Realty Trust, administered by the National Retail Federation and the Elizabeth, N.J. Development Council, is generating a better, more focused candidate for sales associate and management positions, and area retailers are snapping up its graduates.