There was a documentary on a German public network where they investigated this and lab tested the garments and the quality of materials from the exact same bra

There was a documentary on a German public network where they investigated this and lab tested the garments and the quality of materials from the exact same brand from the flagship stores in the city vs the outlet products. Not all of the brands did this, but a lot of them used outlets to get rid of poor quality stuff, experimental product lines and a lot of low quality garments. In some cases, for Levi for example, they had a lot of styles that you could not even find in the normal retail stores.