A Review of Johor Premium Outlet

December 27th, 2011 florence.tan

The mention of Premium Outlets brings back exciting memories for me. I can remember the days of “high-intensity” shopping for famous brands – Polo Ralph Lauren, Nike, Calvin Klein, DKNY, GAP, Levis, Timberland and many more. You need not pay exorbitant prices like what you find at Orchard Road in Singapore and neither will you feel out of place at the designer outlets; the sales assistant at Hugo Boss will still smile at you even if you are in your bermudas.

From the scorching heat at Las Vegas to the winter cold at Chicago, I shopped on various occasions at these Premium Outlets from morning till close, lugging around bags and bags of purchases on both my hands and still craving for more at the end of the day.

Such, is the lure of the Premium Outlet chains as the discounts are real – not the typical “mark up the price before slashing” kind of sales. The prices are truly CHEAP – a Nike dri-fit shirt which can be purchased at less than SGD 30, a CK long-sleeve shirt for less than SGD60, a pair of timberland boots for less than SGD60. Occasionally, there is sugar to the icing when the outlets give “discount on top of discount”, taking another 30% off the discounted price for instance. Despite the price, the range of designs is not compromised and you can find a good selection of fashion items to cater to your kind of dress sense.

Premium Outlet Logo

Thus, I was both eager and hopeful when it was announced that right within Johor Bahru, a Premium Outlet center will be opened, only the 3rd country in Asia to do so. There is a slight apprehension as I wondered if the discounts would be as real and as steep as what you find in United States – the boutique stores in Orchard Road might be hard hit if this is truly the case. Nevertheless, I made it a note to visit the Johor Premium Outlet the moment I have the opportunity to.

Christmas Eve turned out to be the moment of opportunity, as I was off work and happened to be in Johor Bahru. I also need to get a gift for my hubby whose birthday is coming up. It is not difficult to find the Johor Premium Outlet. If you are coming from Singapore (Woodlands) for example, it is a 20 minutes drive from the Johor Bahru CIQ: – Take Exit 253 via the North-South Highway, then Exit 304 -> Exit 302A.

In total, you pay 2 toll charges – RM2.10 and RM0.80 respectively. See map below for more details.

Directions to Johor Premium Outlet (Source: http://www.premiumoutlets.com.my/center-information/directions)

As my car approaches the Premium Outlet, my heart skipped a little. From far, you can see that the design of the Premium Outlet Center is almost the same as what you find in the United States. The logos of famous brands are clearly visible. With 80 stores already opened in Phase 1, I intend to spend the rest of the day shopping!

On the way to Johor Premium Outlet Center

The first hiccup of the day started even before I reached the center. For some reason, only one car park gantry was open and there was a long queue formed to get into the car park of the Premium Outlet Center. Took 10 minutes for the queue to clear, but my spirits was not dampened.

As there was a slight drizzle, I made a dash from my car towards to nearest building. From one of the information stand available, I understood that there were 2 levels of shops which were fortunately, all with sheltered walkway. As I took a first glance at the shops surrounding me, it seemed that there was some local flavour to the setup. For example, Vincci, Padini and Charles and Keith were making a presence. Eh.. not exactly the kind of “famous” brands I was looking for..

Padini and Vincci at the Johor Premium Outlet

I decided to start off with the more international brands.. Nike, Puma and Timberland. As I entered the Nike store, the first impression was the size of the store. It was about halve the size of a typical store you find from the Premium Outlet Centers in the United States, howbeit that the layout and design looks the same. There was a very small selection of apparels (as you can see in the image below) with limited racks and each rack holds only a particular design of shirt/short of various sizes. The footwear selection is only slightly better. What is noteworthy however, is the price. It is simply not cheap and you could probably get the same deal during the Royal Sporting House/ World of Sports sales in Singapore.

Nike Store, at Johor Premium Outlet, Johor Bahru

Sad to say, this was a similar case at both Puma and Timberland, as well as the subsequent stores I went to (Levis, GAP, Clarkes etc).

Puma Store, at Johor Premium Outlet, Johor Bahru

Timberland at Johor Premium Outlet, Johor Bahru

Decided to try out designer labels next and I headed to the adjacent stretch of shops featuring Calvin Klein, Armani Exchange and DKNY.

Designer Labels at Johor Premium Outlet Center, Johor Bahru

These outlets were pretty quiet and again, the stores were pretty small as compared with their US counterparts. At Calvin Klein which is famous for quality undergarments, you struggle to find any real selection at the Johor Premium Outlet. Undergarments aside, most of the items on display are either very similar in design (or the same design displayed in large quantities) and simply NOT CHEAP.

Went to Raoul next and was hoping to get better deals since this is a more local brand (Raoul is owned by a Singapore listed company). How wrong I was as the same story repeats. Small selection of shirts and while this time, the price is cheap – for example, a long-sleeved shirt cost only SGD80, you are unlikely to buy it is very plain looking and does not have the contours or layering of the designs found at the branch at Raffles City Tower, Singapore for example.

After visiting most of the stores, I decided to call it a day. It was not even dark yet but I felt tired already. This was when I realise that I was still empty-handed without making any purchases at all. This was hardly surprising as looking around, I see that MOST of the people still at the outlet were also empty handed as well.

"Hands-Free", at Johor Premium Outlet

Resigned to the fact that there isn’t really much to shop and buy, I headed off to the payment counter to pay for my parking fees. I got a sense of Deja-vu as only one payment counter was open and I simply heaved a sign of despair as I see the long queue of people waiting to pay for their parking charges. One-by-one, people slotted their 1 Ringgit notes into the payment counter (parking fee is RM3.00) and if the notes used were old and crumpled, your wait is extended as they dig into their wallets for fresher notes. It took me 20 minutes to finally make my payment.

Long Frustrating wait at the Johor Premium Outlet, again, most people did not make any purchases

As I drove off from Johor Premium Outlet, I was left wondering if I will ever visit this place again to shop. Hopefully, the management will soon realise that it takes more than an aggregation of brands at a common location to attract the discerning consumer. And hopefully, they realise this soon before the launch of Phase 2 of the project.

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Entry Filed under: Leisure and Entertainment,Shopping