It is undeniable that Barcelona is a cosmopolitan city that has earned a good reputation as a shopping destination, as in its main commercial streets, such as Paseo de Gràcia or the Francesc Macià area, we find many attractive brands for visitors and local clientele.
Beyond these stores, especially on the outskirts of Barcelona, we find some outlets, where you can buy branded clothing and items at very competitive prices. An outlet is nothing more than a point of sale for items below the recommended price. Some brands sell products with more than a 60% discount all year round, so for many people, traveling to these specialized shopping complexes is worth it. A whole life has been created around them, with restaurants and activities that invite you to spend the day.
For retailers and shoppers, outlets are win-win spaces. Customers find products at good prices and often leave these stores with clothes they hadn't considered buying before, but which they acquired because they were a good opportunity.
On the other hand, retailers manage to get rid of stock from other seasons or sell products that cannot be in conventional stores because they have some minor defect. If one is looking for offers, it's like living in a permanent sale, it works all year round, giving a second chance to items.
The best-known outlet in Barcelona, without a doubt, is La Roca Village, which is only half an hour's drive from the Catalan capital. It offers many transport possibilities so as not to lose any customer, such as the Shopping Express, the company's luxury bus, which can be taken at different locations in the city and which, above all, tourists use.
The space is an open-air shopping center with numerous stores. The only difference is the offers provided by each of the 160 boutiques located in this shopping destination, mainly luxury, sports brands, or jewelry. La Roca Village is a very established outlet. It opened in 1998 and has very long opening hours from Monday to Sunday. This facility allows many people to visit La Roca on the weekend, turning this activity into a whole experience.
In recent years, La Roca Village has adapted to new retail trends and now offers many possibilities, such as distance selling through a personal shopper service: a person does the shopping for you and sends it to your home. In parallel, the visit offers a good gastronomic proposal, thanks to the opening of spaces like Atmósfera Mordisco, or Corso Iluzione, the sibling of the restaurant located in the Luzio Concept Store in Barcelona.
Another popular outlet point in the province is Parc Vallés, in Terrassa, a space that also opened its doors in '98, but focused on restaurants and nightlife. A few years later, it changed its strategy, becoming a shopping and leisure center, with a strong presence of outlet stores.
Last year, a Primaprix opened in Parc Vallés, the first large outlet supermarket for top brands in Terrassa, where there is a bit of everything, from perfumery, drinks, bazaar, and food. All its brands offer between 30% and 70% discount, as its team is dedicated to catching manufacturing surpluses, promotions, and liquidations throughout Europe, getting good deals.
If we drive 15 minutes south of Barcelona, we find Viladecans The Style Outlets, another large open-air outlet shopping center. One of its advantages is that it has a pet friendly service, allowing us to enjoy the shopping experience with our pet. In recent years, it has also incorporated an online product sales service.
Obviously, there are many more outlets in Barcelona, and some of them are in spaces that are not multi-brand, but rather individual stores or chain stores. The neighborhoods where we find the most offerings in this regard are Raval and Born. Some large companies also have spaces to sell products from past seasons, such as Desigual Outlet or Mango Outlet, which are like a regular store, the difference being in the product prices.
The activities offered throughout the year by the outlets are very powerful, because they seek to be an attraction pole that encourages us to travel, since by surface area, as I said, many of them are on the outskirts. For example, La Roca Village dresses up for Christmas every year with giant reindeer and a feast of lights, so that everyone wants to stop by to buy gifts.