The Best U.S. Cities for Bargain Shopping
By Meghan Casserly
When international tourists arrive in Orlando, their first stop is rarely a Disney property, but one of the city's 500 factory outlet stores. And they're looking for a very specific item: an empty suitcase.
According to Susan Lomax, the associate vice president of publicity for the city of Orlando, shopping has become the number one activity for international tourists visiting the city, drawn by the brand names at lower prices afforded by the country's most concentrated city for outlets. And Lomax's group, which watches the behavior of these visitors to their city as it increases its attention to shopping as a top tourism draw, reveals an interesting pattern of consumption. "They start in a luggage outlet," she says, "They buy an empty suitcase and spend the rest of their visit filling it up."
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With enough retail space to fill 900 American football fields, it just might take that long. Orlando's 500 outlet stores, 18 million square feet of gross leasable area of retail space in its major malls, a low consumer price index (97.8) and a low combined tax rate of 6.5%, Disney's hometown is the No. 1 city on our first ever list of theBest Cities For Bargain Shopping.
Why scour the country for the best bargains? Because despite increased consumer optimism in the U.S. economy, new research from Symphony IRI's Market Pulse underscores shoppers' continued focus on maintaining the frugal shopping patterns made habit during the recession. According to the research, the "cornerstone to shoppers' conservative behavior continues to be the deal," even among the country's most wealthy of shoppers. Bargain hunting behavior is on the rise: 26% of shoppers (and 20% of the nations' wealthiest) are buying more discounted merchandise today versus one year ago.
Armed with this information, we looked to finding the best cities in the nation for scoring a retail deal. In compiling America's Best Cities For Discount Shopping , we looked at indicators of great discount shopping in the 50 largest metropolitan areas. But because it isn't enough just to get a great price, variety played as big of a role as great prices. Combining data from the U.S. financial, geographical and retail data, the first-ever list provides a snapshot of the best locales to shop till you drop-without breaking your budget.
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Of the 525 major shopping centers in the country's biggest cities, there are nearly 257 million square feet of gross leasable retail area, according to data provided by Esri, a geographic information systems firm that tracks the leasable area of major U.S. shopping centers of over 225,000 square feet. While18 million of that number lie within the city of Orlando, the most retail square footage in a major U.S. city falls out West. Phoenix, Ariz. (No. 3), boasts an astonishing 39,976,120 square feet of leasable retail area.
Las Vegas hosts 27,656,538 in its shopping centers, including 3,056 retail stores and over 225 factory outlet locations. At No. 4 on our list, Las Vegas also claims the highest number of Wal Mart locations in the country-19 within 10 miles of city center. For a city of just under 2 million, that's a whole lot of Wal Mart. Between outlet shopping and big box store savings, the City of Sin seems like a sure thing for scoring a deal. According to Jeremy Handel, the public relations manager for the Vegas convention and Visitors Authority, 65% of visitors to the city shop while in town, dropping an average of $190 per person.
Another standout on the list is Philadelphia, where clothing and shoes are tax free and 35% of overnight visitors make shopping a priority over fine dining (27%), historic site visits (23%) and arts and culture (21%). According to a study by Tourism Economics, visitors to the City of Brotherly Love spent $867 million in the retail sector in 2010 at one of the city's nearly 2,000 retail stores including over one million square feet of outlet shopping at Franklin Mills.
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The biggest surprise in the rankings is Cincinnati at No. 8. While most of the top 10 are known tourist destinations, the Midwestern city is more famous for its food than as a draw for out of towners. Still, outdoor Cincinnati Premium Outlets, opened in 2010 added nearly 100 new discount locations to the area and according to the mall's press office tours of 15 shoppers or more are available in multiple languages-indicating discount shopping just might be the next big priority for the city's tourism.
What we measured: Combined sales tax for each city was provided by BankRate.com. Consumer Price Index is measured by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Outlet count courtesy of Outletbound.com. Gross leasable retail area and total retail locations data was provided by Esri. Wal Mart information courtesy of Wal Mart.
Click through the list for a snapshot of what each city has to offer. Have you scored deals in these cities? What's the best destination for bargain shopping in your region?
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