Consumers shop at Florentia Village in suburban Shanghai (Photo: Maggie Zhang)
For Steven Zhou, a 40-year-old Beijing office worker, suburban outlet stores offer a better shopping experience than urban malls, allowing him to escape the city, park his car without frustration and, most importantly, find good deals.
“Outlets offer a wide selection of brands, with attractive discounts, especially on sportswear,” Zhou said.
Across the mainland, outlets are expanding while traditional and luxury malls face high vacancy rates. Offering well-known brands at discounted prices, outlets aligned with changing consumer preferences and the current trend of rational spending amid the sluggish economy, according to analysts.
“By encouraging longer visits, the format fits with the demand of short weekend trips of families and young consumers,” said Fu Yifu, a special researcher at Su Merchants Bank in Nanjing, the capital of eastern China’s Jiangsu province.
From 2021 to 2025, total sales generated by outlets in China nearly doubled to RMB248 billion ($45.7 billion) from RMB126 billion, making the sector a key growth driver for retail sales, according to a report by the China Commerce Association for General Merchandise.
The popularity has encouraged many developers to increase their bets on suburban retail. Several new outlets have opened in recent months, with more to follow this year.
Beijing’s largest outlet, Wangfujing Group-operated WellTown, opened in December in eastern Tongzhou district near Universal Beijing Resort.
The opening “has injected new vitality into consumption upgrading in Beijing’s sub-centre”, said Vincent Li, head of research for north China at Savills.
Meanwhile, Florentia Village Shanghai outlet is expected to open its third phase in the first half of this year, adding about 1,800 parking spots and bringing its total size to over 100,000 sq m (over 1.076 million sq ft).
During the nine-day Chinese New Year holiday that concluded on Feb 23, many mainland outlets recorded strong foot traffic. The Yueshang Outlets in Wuxi, in Jiangsu province, reported a 5% revenue increase compared with a year earlier, according to the local government.
Growth in the outlet segment contrasts with struggles for malls in urban centres. In Guangzhou, the capital of the southern province of Guangdong, for example, leasing demand remained cautious in 2025, broadly in line with 2024, as many retailers delayed expansions and store openings. The citywide vacancy rate in shopping centres at the end of 2025 edged up 0.2 percentage points from a year earlier to 12.4%, according to Savills.
Outlets tend to attract a more diverse customer base than traditional malls, including more younger people and more middle-aged men, as well as county-level consumers.
“The wide selection of sports and outdoor brands, and family bulk purchasing, have effectively increased male participation in family shopping at outlets,” said Guo Xinxin, an analyst of LeadLeo Research Institute, a Shanghai-based market research provider. “The open layout and concentrated brand displays reduce middle-aged men’s reluctance to shop in smaller traditional malls with confusing layouts. This shift has further boosted outlets’ market growth potential.”
More outlets are integrating leisure experiences to stand out. In December, state-owned conglomerate China Resources (Holdings) opened a resort-style outlet in Dongguan, in Guangdong, combining shopping with exhibitions, performances and fairs.
“Vacation-oriented outlet malls boast strong growth potential and are expected to attract more developers in the future as they break through the growth bottleneck of traditional outlets,” said Fu at Su Merchants Bank.
As competition in the commercial property sector intensifies, leading developers are accelerating expansion and building benchmark projects by leveraging their operational and resource strengths. Smaller developers would follow this trend, and the industry was expected to see a new wave of format upgrading, Fu said.
However, he added that first- and second-tier Chinese cities had become more saturated with outlet malls, while competition in lower-tier markets was growing increasingly fierce. Outbound consumption, online discounts and duty-free stores also continued to divert customers. Furthermore, slower growth in luxury spending in China had made brands more cautious about expanding their footprints at outlets, he said.
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