Outlet villages are the new 'in' for shopping

Florentia gets big brands under one umbrella to draw Chinese shoppers

Two designer outlet villages are set to open in Pudong next year ahead of the first phase of Shanghai Disneyland - Silk Road Holdings' Renaissance-styled Florentia Village, in January, and Shanghai Village, operated by Value Retail, later in the fall. They could hardly have timed it better: The domestic luxury clothing market is fast maturing in China's financial capital amid a period of economic cooling on the domestic front exacerbated by an ongoing anti-graft campaign. Disney-generated tourism should sprinkle additional fairy dust on their respective operations.

Since the world's first outlet mall opened in the United States in the late 1970s, brands have generally considered them a last resort, the final channel of distribution.