I think there's some confusion as to what outlet store is being talking about..
There are The
Disney Store outlets, and they sell items that come from Disney Stores around the country. They carry new merchandise, same as the stores at that moment, they carry older merchandise that has been moved there from regular stores, and they carry some outlet exclusive merchandise (or at least they used to, not sure if they still do anymore) These are owned and run by Disney, just the way the regular Disney Stores are. As well, they are located around the country, like the regular TDS. Prices here can vary. They can carry full priced merchandise, and some on clearance, and then the outlet exclusive merchandise is going to be lower priced as well, but sometimes it's of lower quality.
There are what they call Character Premiere Stores. These are the ones that are the outlets for the parks and cruise line. I know that there are at least two of them, one just outside WDW off of Vineland, and one in Ft Lauderdale at Sawgrass Mills mall. If there are more, I'm unsure of it. There might be something in California, and maybe something else in Florida. I just don't know the details. They sell all the stuff you normally could get at the parks and the cruise ships, and sometimes at a deeply discounted price. It's a lot of variety, homegoods, shirts, pjs, costumes, pins, toys, etc. Especially lots of dated things or holiday stuff. Things that obviously have a limited life span INSIDE the park.
Now, to add one more log to the fire, there are some places that are liquidation events. I don't believe these are run by anyone Disney related, and I've only seen one in my life, but I'm sure there are others. This was basically a warehouse set up with rows and rows of tables, and then racks around the outside selling Disney merchandise. They had things from the parks and from the stores. ALL the stuff from the Disney Stores was WAAAAAYYYY past it's shelf life, even for an outlet. I went to one when i was working for the Disney Store, and they had things that we hadn't had in the stores for several years. And the thing was, the price wasn't good on it, either. Had they still been in the store, they would have been marked down to like, 3.99, but there they only had a discount of about 25-30% (still costing over 12 dollars) They also were selling things like popcorn buckets and refillable mugs, it was a weird place.
If you're really looking to buy Disney things, and you don't have a big selection at home, why not go online and shop their website. You can get almost everything from the Disney Store online, plus they're now selling park merchandise online, too. Seems to me that'd be the easiest way. They also send out TONS of coupons in email, as well as almost all the time there's some offer for free shipping!
