Ollies Bargain Outlet

Have you ever wanted to make your house look cheap, buy Chinese made cosmetics and ruin the US economy at the same time? Now you can! You won’t find more than a handful of products here that aren’t made in China. Actually, it’s one of the only stores I’ve seen that basically just stacks the unopened pallets in the store, so you can almost envision the entire inventory arriving in one big shipping container from PRC.
It frustrates me that people don’t understand that «getting a deal» (in most cases 30 – 50 cents off) does ruin the economy. Need batteries? Sure they sell Chinese variants for 20 cents cheaper (Duracell are made in USA). Is the (1) lack of quality (2) lack of utility (3) loss of jobs really not enough to convince anyone to buy domestic? Who honestly lives so marginally close to the poverty line that they can mentally rationalize these concessions? NO ONE. So wake up and realize you’re not «snagging a good deal» but rather setting in motion a wasteful and dangerous chain of events.
Economically speaking, this is a dumping ground for big box retailers to cast off their extra inventory. Not a bad idea. However, they pervert the idea by also supplementing their inventory with some of the lowest quality imports that you can find. Why does 9.99 Made in China laminate flooring look appealing? For people who can’t plan ahead and aren’t disciplined, anything that is attainable with little cost looks like a deal. To someone able to save and work hard, they realize the laminate will peel, look like shit and reach its end of economic life far before a higher quality product.
Please inform yourself before shopping here. It’s truly one of the most disturbing examples of a Chinese storefront that necessarily means closing local businesses.

Becky S.‘s review is spot-​on. I thought the same thing when I first went there: this is a lot like Big Lots, only bigger. And they have such a huge variety of different items.
I don’t come here regularly, but it’s cool because every time I go they have a whole new crop of buyouts, closeouts, or different odds and ends. The prices are more than reasonable, they are downright cheap.
I signed up for a loyalty card the last time I was there. It’s not like a Kroger Plus card where you need it to get advertised prices, though. Instead, it just kind of accumulates points for the money you spend there and when you hit a certain mark you get a reward of some sort. Not sure what it is. And if you fill in your email address they send you special «members only» coupons and sale adverts. The stuff at Ollie’s is already super-​cheap, so 20% off of super-​cheap is, like, super-​duper-​cheap. I’m a fan!