JR Afternoon with Chris Renwick

Deal Hunters Weekend Is On!

November 12, 2024 ~ Chris speaks with Michelle Shook, General Manager, Birch Run Premium Outlets and Kelsey Rudy, Director of Marketing for Birch Run Premium Outlets about Deal Hunters Weekend and why you should visit them to do your holiday shopping.

Duration:: 10m
Broadcast on:: 12 Nov 2024
Audio Format:: other

- All right, welcome back. The 28th annual Deal Hunter is weekend, coming up this weekend here at Birch Run, and I am joined by Michelle Shook, she's the general manager here. It's great to have you. Thanks for coming by. - Oh, thanks for coming back. - I know you're busy. You're running around all over the place. - Oh, it's okay. Yeah, we are, but you know what, this is our Super Bowl. So we prepare for it every year, and it's so much fun. I mean, we're just running around, but it's so worth it, just to see the excitement on the ladies and the gentlemen that come for this weekend. We just have a lot to offer, and it's been our 28th year, and so it's, we have people that have been coming back for 28 years. We have a group of ladies from Canada that come back, and we do, yeah, and they've been here for every year, except for the COVID year. They wear the same pink camel sweatshirts. - Stop it. - And hats every year, yeah. So we put together some VIP bags for them from when they come back this year, and they posted on our Facebook page, and so I sent them pictures that we have of them over the years, so. - Just like the Super Bowl, people come, right? They are repeat guests, and that's pretty great. Kelsey Rudy, also the director of marketing here with us. It's good to have you, too. - Thank you, and happy to have you on property. - So what goes into this process? When you talk about a year's worth of planning for this weekend, what goes into it? - Absolutely, so much from each of our tenants, and we're constantly gathering special coupons for them to think about for this weekend, extra discounts for all of our guests. We have over $1,000 of gift cards to give away throughout the course of the weekend that have been donated by our stores here at Bertrand Premium. - Wow. - Yeah, and so we just got the bargain guide that you have right there in your hand. It's ready to go, so this is gonna include all of our extra deals, you know, in addition to the regular up to 65% off that our stores are running all the time, we're gonna have power hours that are above and beyond. We're gonna have a lot of fun, exciting stuff to give away. - I mean, I can't-- - Over the weekend. - I can't even name everything here. - There's so much. - It's a real community effort, right? To make sure that this weekend is what it's supposed to be. - Absolutely, yep, from the Bertrand community to Saginaw County to the Great Lakes Bay CBB, I mean, everybody helps promote this weekend for us, so it's been a really, it's a tradition. I mean, it's a tradition and we're just really excited. - How has it evolved over the years? - So it started out, this was before all the digital things we're going on and stuff, so we used to actually, I was here during the fifth annual, it was previously called Dear Widows Weekend, and we had, we would literally stop hunting, those little hunting things that they have to put on to put their tags in and stuff, I don't know the name of them, but we would stuff those hunting packets with like over 500 coupons physically, 'cause we would get all these from the stores, and the first 500 people that would go through, we put random gift cards in them, so it was just, we were taking pictures with Polaroid cameras of the ladies and the shoppers, so it's really evolved, I mean, we've done so many things, we have a wine reception that we have on Friday night, we did away with that for a few years and it came back from popular demand, so we have a bunch of people staying here in hotels and they want something to deal, so we have that with the shopping, so we've just added just different things year after year after year, well four years ago we added the power hour, actually five years ago we added the power hours, and so we'll have like a special hour of deals and discounts and a specific tenant retailer during that time. - Yeah, and I mean, people can go to GoGreat.com and check out all the things that you-- - Absolutely. - Give himself a little respite from shopping, which of course is the main attraction, but you talk about the, all of these companies, all of these stores that participate, it's part of the DNA, right, of this weekend, it's like, if you're here, you gotta participate, you gotta come right. - Absolutely, pressure's on, and the customer's here to have a good time, you know, we always want our tenants to think about, if you're on vacation and this is your weekend away to do your Christmas shopping, how do you wanna feel when you step into the stores, you want it to be fun, you want it to be exciting, and so we're really here to create that party type atmosphere for the clients all weekend long, we're gonna have DJs, Columbia's gonna have a DJ, from 92 on Friday, we're gonna have the DJ move over to the wine reception from five to seven, so a little wine and dancing at our welcome reception, I believe Puma also has a DJ on for the weekend, we're gonna do face painting and balloon animals for the kids from 12 to three on Saturday, so we're just trying to make it a great time for everybody all around and get 'em as many free goodies as we can. - Well, and I mean, I was telling my wife, I said, oh, I'm going up to Bertrand to do this, the show, and she's like, oh, good, make sure you stop off at Nike, make sure you stop by, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, so when I'm done here, I'm going shopping myself, I got a bunch of stuff to get to, but again, it's like when you bring all of these companies in, these are what people want, right? These are the companies that people wanna to go to or shop for anyway, so when you come, everybody's here. - Absolutely, yes, and so they really come for the brands, I mean, we've been here since 1986, the mall has, and it's really all about the brands and the deals, with the economy of the way that it is, I mean, our deals are things that people rely on, and coming here and getting maybe a little lemon, you know, at a discounted rate, or a pair of Nike shoes, that maybe they couldn't afford a full price, but they can come here and get it on a great deal, or Columbia, I mean, Columbia's got great deals, I got a big tent sale this weekend, they've got, they're black Friday deals right now, they're up to 60% off, so getting a coat, you know, can be very, very inexpensive, and then if you buy something in the 10 on clearance, it's another 10% off, I mean, you can't get that, anywhere else. - So what are these power hour deals, you guys have mentioned it a couple times, what is that exactly? - So power hours are gonna be deals that they have. - Because I'll tell ya, a power hour to me, you know, in college meant something totally different. (all laughing) Totally different, so what is it here at Deal Hunters? - So what it is, is a deal that's above and beyond what they already have, so as Michelle had mentioned, Columbia's already started their black Friday sale, which is amazing, there are going to be hours, for example, from a 10 to 11 a.m. on Friday, where you can get items at Columbia as low as $19.99. So it's gonna be something above and beyond even their usual, amazing discount. Some retailers maybe offer a gift with purchase for their hour. Lint, for example, they're a wonderful sponsor to the center, we're actually, Lint was so generous to sponsor our hot chocolate, we're hosting the big guy, you guys just had Santa Claus on Thursday night, to later treat, yeah. Hitting the jaw chock a little hard, apparently. (all laughing) - So Lint is a great sponsor for us, but they're sponsoring not only the hot chocolate for us to get our Christmas tree lit this week, but also during their power hour, you can stop in and it's like a dozen free truffles that you get with a $30 purchase. - Wow. - So a lot of things, you know, just based on maybe deals that start around $9.99 or even $14.99, maybe it's an extra 10 or 20% off your purchase for that entire hour. So definitely we want to encourage the shoppers to stop at the information booth, grab their bargain guide and really see, you know, who's got the best deals every hour and also-- - Is there a competition amongst the stores? - Well, I don't want to say that. There was a competition over Halloween, so I definitely want to shout out our Hey Dude store who had the most creative pumpkin this Halloween, so they're getting a free pizza party courtesy of us. - Oh, cool, that's cool. - This weekend. So there's actually not a deal hunters competition, but that's a good idea. But I mean, amongst the, right, everybody's competing for business, it's the reality, right? This is the market, the free market that we live in. So everybody wants to bring people in. Truffles, extra money off or that free gift that you get. I mean, this is the way that businesses have to operate now because of the economy, like you mentioned, and the money being so tight across the board. I think it's great that these stores under your direction here really understand that this is a huge time for people to get here and find these deals. - Absolutely, yes. I mean, we, with some of our retailers and stuff too, I mean, there, you know, you can hit the clearance racks as well. - Right, sure. - I mean, and so you're getting things that you wouldn't even be able to think about getting, you know, otherwise. - You got to be ready to hunt the deals this weekend. - You got to be ready. - Absolutely, and during those power hours too, we will find you, and we have special giveaways in store, so those thousand dollars gift cards that I had suggested earlier. We're gonna be giving those away throughout the day, and we also have some really great deal hunters weekend swag to stop into these power hours and just surprise them to light a lucky house blind. No, no deer blinds for me. - No, that's pretty good. - We have shirts and hats and just everything, you know, that commemorate the experience. We have a selfie station, we have some holiday photo apps for people to really-- - That's awesome. - You know, 'cause we have people that have been coming for years, like I said, and we have, they have like, it's like maybe the mom, the daughter, the granddaughter, and then they bring the aunt, and they bring the cousin, and so-- - Well, you've created an expectation. - Absolutely. - And that's why people continue to come back. Really good stuff. Michelle Shook, Kelsey Rudy, thank you guys so much. Hopefully you get some sort of rest this weekend. - Oh, on Sunday. - Yeah, yeah, right, yeah. - I may not, yeah. - Very good. All right, it's deal Hunter's weekend. It's coming up this weekend right here at Birch Run. We'll take a break, more coming up next.