Las Vegas among best destinations for bargain shoppers

A look at the expansion of Las Vegas Outlet Center, which is being re-branded and re-named to Las Vegas Premium Outlets-South Tuesday, March 8, 2011.

Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012 | 3:04 p.m.

Sun coverage

• Las Vegas is ranked No. 4 in a new list of the nation’s “Best Cities For Bargain Shopping.”

The list, published by Forbes on Friday, says Las Vegas is among the “top 10 cities for scoring great deals” because the Las Vegas metro area has 19 Walmarts and the area has 225 factory outlet stores.
The other cities in the top 10 are New Orleans (10), Nashville (9), Cincinnati (8), Philadelphia (7), Chicago (6), Baltimore (5), Phoenix (3), Austin (2) and Orlando (1).
While Las Vegas has luxury malls on the Strip, including Crystals and the Forum Shops at Caesars, tourists and locals also frequent the bargain-oriented outlet centers off Interstate 15, including two Las Vegas Premium Outlets (North and South) in Las Vegas and the Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas in Primm.
Forbes, in its story, noted that during the recession, bargain-hunting behavior rose, and that’s continuing with 26 percent of shoppers buying more discounted merchandise today compared with this time one year ago.
Las Vegas visitors’ love of shopping has been well documented, with theLas Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reporting last year in its annual Visitor Profile Study for 2010 that 64 percent of visitors went shopping and average spending by visiting shoppers increased from $102 in 2009 to $123.
But reflecting the trend toward bargain shopping, the $123 figure was down from average spending per visitor of $141 in 2006.
Forbes noted in its report that Las Vegas has about 27.7 million square feet of leasable retail space — more than the 18 million in Orlando and the 18.6 million in Austin but less than the nearly 40 million feet in Phoenix.
Las Vegas, Forbes said, has 3,056 retail stores.
“Las Vegas also claims the highest number of Walmart 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 Walmart. Between outlet shopping and big box store savings, the City of Sin seems like a sure thing for scoring a deal,” Forbes said in its story.
Not mentioned in the story is that the Las Vegas metro area is struggling with a high retail vacancy rate of 10.6 percent — but that’s a problem for shopping center owners as opposed to consumers, who continue to frequent the region’s most popular malls.