Dive Brief:

• E-commerce is empowering customers shopping at retailers’ outlet stores to discover that many items were never sold online or in flagship retail stores.

• Many retailers openly say many outlet-store items are “made-for-factory” and essentially, as Buzzfeed notes, are self-made knock-offs in a way.

• Savvy customers note that retailers will use dots and other means of tagging these knock-off-like items, but “compared to” prices listed on tags may be deceptive.

Dive Insight:

Some members of Congress are interested in having the Federal Trade Commission investigate practices like this at outlet stores that might be misleading consumers. But the practice of selling lower-quality merchandise in the mix of factory irregulars or last season’s apparel is also a “dangerous” one for retailers because it could undermine a brand, Columbia Business School marketing professor Mark Cohen told Buzzfeed.