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.

DECEMBER Cover Story Features Off-Price

Cover Story

Outlet Shopping’s Comfort Quotient
Consumers looking for comfort during these tough times may turn to outlet shopping for escape from a dreary reality. In a three-pronged approach, VRN offers suggestions for what outlet retailers can do in today’s shaky environment; an overview of encouraging signs and upsetting economic reports, and a profile on Candie’s, which has given the industry a breath of fresh air with its plans to add 75 units.

Features

Outlet Bound Consumer Survey, Part 3
Consumers have plenty to say about what they’re looking for in an ideal outlet shopping experience; this month they tell developers and retailers how much they want shopping carts and enclosed malls.

Prime Outlets at Ellenton turns 10
From its beginnings in a muddy orange grove, Prime Outlets at Ellenton (Fla.) has matured into a 482,000-sf project that attracts 5 million visitors annually.

Westbrook Launches Stay-And-Shop Program
Charter Oak Partners’ new tourist-oriented marketing program aims to woo travelers to Westbrook (Conn.) Factory Stores with reduced room rates at local properties.

ICSC Maxi and Merit Award Winners
Chelsea Property Group’s center in Gotemba, Japan, was the only outlet project to win a prestigious ICSC Maxi Award, but Charter Oak Partners received recognition for one of its sales-enhancing campaigns.

New Marketing Plan for Denton
Hunt Petroleum, developers of Exposition Mills-Denton Factory Shops, realized their 10-year-old center needed a marketing overhaul to position the center as alive, well and on the move.

Global Outlets: Easy Sailing in Portugal
A peripatetic developer writes about how relationships and understanding the marketplace made opening La Campera Outlet Shopping near Lisbon more trouble-free — except for running out of goods and food during the grand opening — than anyone thought it would be.

Off-price

Discover Mills Opens
VRN reports on the opening of Mills Corp.’s 1.2 million-sf Discover Mills in Gwinnett County, outside of Atlanta.