On August 23rd, 2022, we visited the Woodbury Common Premium Outlets. My first thought while entering the mall was that it looked like a bigger and nicer version of another outdoor mall we visited named Jersey Shore Premium Outlets in Tinton Falls Outlets.
Once we were able to get a map, it was easy to walk around the mall because it was split into five sections, and the roofs of the stores within each section were color-coded like on the map. The names of these sections were Adirondacks, Hamptons, Hudson Valley, Niagara, and Saratoga.
Although the mall was clean and had a great setting, we were surprised to see that many of the stores were not open despite the mall being open already for an hour. The stores that were also closed had queues forming outside the door, and it made us feel like we were in an amusement park.
In addition, one wing of the mall had many overly priced products with crazy sales. This is fine if we are getting a top-notch experience while buying each item, but we visited several stores that didn't justify making everything expensive. Some stores felt dirty and claustrophobic once we entered, and it was obvious that others were being renovated while still being open to customers. No one should be paying $500 for a pair of pants in a store with the walls covered in holes and random paint marks. Nevertheless, aside from that one wing, the rest of the mall had fair pricing.
One other aspect of the mall we found odd was that there were two stores across from each other that were the same company, and they both had the same type of purse that was priced differently in each store. In one store, the purse costs $117, and $133 in the other store. Both of us found it odd that the pricing for a purse differed from two different stores in the same company.
Despite the overly priced products in the one wing and many stores that were being renovated, there were still many aspects of the mall we enjoyed. As I mentioned earlier, the outside portion of the mall was very clean, and it had a great setting between some mountains that surrounded the mall. Another aspect we liked was that all the staff we met were very friendly. They always greeted us when we walked into their stores, and some started conversations with which we enjoyed. Finally, we found a cool playground that we both thought was cute in the Saratoga section. This makes it possible for one family member to keep their children busy while the other family members went shopping, and we would have loved this playground if we were still children.
We hope to revisit this mall once again in a few years on another summer day when we don't feel like going to the beach, and really want to travel a little and then go shopping.
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