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The Belk in Franklin was recently converted to a Belk Outlet store, and the location held its grand opening Saturday, June 3, with live music, treats and the new brand of shopping made possible by the store’s conversion.

Ethan Harris, a Belk spokesperson, noted that the new outlet-style store offers Belk shoppers their favorite designer labels, plus new brands, at a discounted price and includes everything from clothing, shoes, handbags, home décor and more — all at final sale. 

Joe Giardina, who is in his third year as manager of the Belk store in Franklin, said the location held its soft opening as a Belk Outlet on May 23. That event came with only minimal advertising, but the word got out.

“That first day was really big,” he said. “A lot of people turned out to check us out.”

WHAT HAS CHANGED?

Giardina cited some reasons for the positivity, first noting, for context, that the Franklin location has been a smaller store within the Belk family.

“We just didn’t get a lot of the nicer brands, the higher-end brands, and so a lot of customers were looking for some of the designer brands,” he said. “But now with the outlet format, we’re getting merchandise from other stores.”

He emphasized that all the merchandise at the Franklin location is Belk merchandise.

“It’s just clearance from some of the bigger stores and kind of helping them alleviate just having too much merchandise in their stores and being able to make room for new merchandise,” he said. “So we’re shipping out that clearance to the outlet stores, so now we have designer wear, and that’s all at clearance prices.”

Harris stated that the new outlet concept will carry merchandise from Belk’s top stores and offer nearly three times the assortment of products.

Giardina said positivity surrounding Franklin’s new Belk Outlet may also stem from its format — clothing is organized by size and category.

“So if you know your size is large and you’re looking for a top, it’s easy to go to that area and look for that and see what we have in your size,” he said.

The Franklin location is now one of 16 Belk stores that have converted to the Belk Outlet concept since January, and Giardina noted that the conversion process, in Franklin, took five weeks.

“We used all of our associates pretty much full-time hours to get it all done, and it was a lot of work to do, but it was very satisfying,” he said.

The store’s hours will remain the same: Monday-Saturday 10 a.m.-8 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m.-6 p.m.