CASTLE ROCK, Colo. — Shoppers flooding the Outlets at Castle Rock the day following Christmas were there to hunt for bargains, cash in gift cards, and make post-holiday returns.
“Spring merchandise will be hitting the store soon, so they’re clearing out their winter and holiday inventories, and you’re going to get great deals starting today,” said Jen Petersen, senior director of marketing for the outlet mall.
She said many clearance items are priced to move and that the best selection may last only about a week.
Some retailers at the center were surprised by the amount of traffic, even if it didn’t quite hit the levels of a Black Friday crowd.
“I was shocked. I drove in, I saw the cars in the parking lot, and I was like, ‘Wow, far better than I expected,’” said Jim Fuller, store manager at Mammut, a Swiss maker of high-end outdoor apparel. “There's a lot of people who come in looking to get the gift they didn't get during the holidays.”
The post-Christmas rush is driven in part by returns and exchanges and by shoppers redeeming gift cards. According to Adobe Commerce, one out of every eight returns last holiday season occurred in the week following Christmas.
The Outlets at Castle Rock sells special gift cards at customer services that work at any store or restaurant in the mall. Petersen noted that those cards do not expire, so there is no urgency to redeem them, unless shoppers are after specific clearance deals.
“People are using them all the time, and actually we're kind of excited to see that because the outlets are a bigger draw than one little Swiss store in the outlet, so we get a lot of business out of that,” said Fuller.
