Shopping at an outlet center is a bit like a treasure hunt—that’s the draw for many people, said Tanger Outlets CEO Stephen Yalof. It’s even more appealing amid inflation.

“I think the most important thing is that inflation favors value. So as prices go up, if you want to make your dollar stretch further, that value channel definitely lends itself,” Yalof told Retail Brew. “To get that full experience, to shop the brands that you want to get the product you want, the logos that you want, in an environment that is on sale every day—I think that it’s what an outlet center will give you, whether during inflationary times or not.”

• Tanger operates 36 outlet centers in the US, which include off-price retailers like Burlington, TJ Maxx, and Saks’s discount offshoot, Saks Off 5th.
• Tanger reported $112.09 million in Q4 earnings last week, roughly on par with the $111.15 million in revenue during the same period in 2020.

Bargain hunting: “Even in the best of times, there’s always going to be an aspirational customer who, in a value environment, would be willing to step into a store that they might not on a...high-end fashion street or a fashion mall, but actually have an opportunity to buy product at a price point that’s accessible to them,” Yalof said.

• Last year, Burlington announced a 2,000-store expansion, doubling down on its previous commitment to open 1,000 new locations.
• TJX Cos., which includes Marshalls and HomeGoods, missed earnings expectations in Q4, but comparable sales for open stores were up 17% from two years ago. “Consumers are under budgetary pressure, which is making them seek better value for money,” Neil Saunders, GlobalData Retail managing director, said in a statement.

The price is right: But the value play isn’t just high-end. Yalof noted that home, apparel, and footwear demonstrated a strong “resurgence” in Q4 after Tanger executed 337 leases in 2021, many from these categories. Much of the success can be attributed to retailers getting out ahead of inventory and staffing issues prior to the holidays, he said.

What also bodes well for off-price, in Yalof’s estimation, is increasing conversion rates—meaning they’re selling more products with the same amount of customers.

• Tanger’s Q4 tenant sales reached an all-time high of $468 per square foot.

“I like to keep the cars in the parking lot in our shopping centers as long as we can,” Yalof said. “Our mission is to add diversity in merchandising, bring in a brand-new customer, get the customer who comes to stay longer. And when they do, they ultimately will build a bigger basket. And we’ll have more dollars per customer. And that’s a metric we care a lot about.”—KM

Wearables are where the wrist is—but maybe not for long? Emerging Tech Brew’s Jordan McDonald explores how a handful of companies, like Whoop, Oura, and Moov, are going out on a new limb:

Fitness tracking startup Whoop, which is valued at $3.6 billion, has expanded beyond its original wrist-based design into smart garments. Dubbed Whoop Body, the product is essentially a fitness clothing line, featuring items like compression shorts or bralettes, in which the Whoop 4.0 fitness tracker can be placed. Many of the same metrics tracked by wrist-based wearables—like heart rate and heart variance—are collected, even though the sensors are on different parts of the body.

John Capodilupo, co-founder and chief technology officer at Whoop, told Emerging Tech Brew that some of the best places to get an accurate measurement of heart rate may not be the wrist, bicep, torso, but instead the forehead, ear lobes, and lips. Unfortunately, there’s at least one major problem with that: Design and style preferences may make digital health companies think twice about developing, say, lip rings or headbands that track your heart rate.

Whoop’s smart apparel is an attempt to find a middle ground between form and function. Capodilupo says the clothing line can keep its trackers stable in places that have less motion than the wrist, like the small of the back or torso, leading to more accurate tracking.

Read the full story on Emerging Tech Brew here.—GT

If you didn’t already know, Morning Brew is on YouTube! Our shows cover the tech, trends, and companies you care about—in a way that won’t make your eyes burn from jargon or boredom. If you’re wondering how the world works (well, that makes two of us!), let’s figure it out together. Check out some of our shows:

• Brew Breakdown: We break down questions such as: What is happening with inflation? WTF is a credit score? How are hip-hop artists making bank with NFTs? How is the NIL changing college sports?
• Point of Return: We learn from regular folks, not financial advisors, about the best investment they ever made.
• Street Value: On the streets of NYC, we test people’s knowledge of NFTs, crypto, and, most importantly, Elon Musk.
• Founder’s Journal: Morning Brew cofounder and executive chairman Alex Lieberman gives you, the business builder, the tools you need to think better in order to build better, whether that’s building a business, a team, or a new product.

While still in a crater after Friday’s dump off, Foot Locker’s stock today is slowly rebounding. But the retailer must continue to contend with the impact of Nike’s shift toward DTC.

Although Foot Locker didn’t name Nike outright in its earnings report, it said that no single vendor is projected to account for more than 60% of total purchases this fiscal year. And that revenues would fall.

• Nike accounted for 70% of Foot Locker’s purchases in 2021, per its annual report.

Something’s gotta stick: Nike aside, Foot Locker noted that relationships with other suppliers, like Adidas, Puma, and New Balance, would help overcome the speed bumps. Reebok, for instance, recently expanded its partnership with the company to diversify its assortment of products both online and in stores.

And, and, and: More recently, Foot Locker has been stepping into new strategies to go “off mall” and expand its reach. It acquired WSS, a national shoe retail chain, and Atmos, a Japanese sneaker company, last summer for $1.1+ billion.

• “They both gave us an opportunity to broaden our customer base and cater to different aspects of youth culture, which is our mission,” Jed Berger, Foot Locker’s global CMO, previously told Retail Brew.

The retailer has also debuted four private labels—including Cozi, a womens’ apparel brand, last December.—JS

Today’s top retail reads.

Bowled over: A ceramics company announced it was raising prices to raise wages, and customers were psyched. (Fast Company)

Along for the ride: How ebike maker VanMoof’s entertaining YouTube series about recovering stolen ebikes makes you want one. (The New York Times)

Raising the steaks: An appreciation-slash-defense of A1 sauce. “It makes everything taste so good that it tastes overwhelming, and therefore kind of bad, like an 80s power ballad or 90s action flick that works because of some combination of nostalgia and bewilderment from how inexplicably over-the-top it is.” (Eater)

Listen: In the latest episode of Business Casual, Nora and Scott chat with Dan Runcie, founder of Trapital, a weekly newsletter about the hip-hop industry, and look at how trends and strategies that start in hip-hop influence the rest of the business world. Check it out.

At the mall, it’s where band tees are the only tees. In Retail Brew, it’s where we invite readers to weigh in on a trending retail topic.

Last week, Kroger announced a pilot program for some of its Fred Meyer stores that—depending on how consumers cotton to it—could revolutionize the way we shop or…well, it was worth a shot.

At 25 Fred Meyers in (and near) Portland, Oregon, shoppers can purchase products in reusable containers and return the empties to the store to be cleaned and refilled for the next shopper.

• Kroger is partnering with Loop on the project, which will feature more than 20 products across food and non-food brands including Cascade, Clorox, Gerber, and Pantene.

Fill ’er up: Loop sees itself as an improvement over recycling, since its packaging can be reused for at least 10 refills. But it will take (literally) buy-in from shoppers, who’ll cough up a returnable deposit of up to $10 for the products and then have to schlep them back to the store. (Kermit had it right about being green.)

Totes into it? If your supermarket offered this, and an item on your shopping list was available in a refillable bottle, how often would you choose the refillable bottle product over the one in standard packaging? Cast your vote here.

Circling back: Brands, including Yeti, Nike, and Adidas, are lowering their profile in some stores to take a more DTC approach. As for whether that’s a smart strategy, respondents were split roughly into thirds: 37% said retailers should not switch to just DTC, nearly 28% think there should be more emphasis on DTC, and 35% said it depends on the brand.

Catch up on the Retail Brew stories you may have missed.

• Unionization efforts pick up across the retail industry
• DTC company Brunt gets to work with $20 million in funding
• Canned tepache maker goes with its gut