First Look: Brand Junction Bundoora

Melbourne’s latest Outlet Centre is now up and running at University Hill, Bundoora, and on the weekend we checked it out to see if its a new shopping must do!

Brand Junction promise’s a lot on its website – ‘Over 100 Big Brands at up to 70% off‘ but I have to admit to a certain level of skeptisim before going, based mostly on my DFO experiences. But the list of retailers on the website was enticing – Alannah Hill, Review (there isn’t a review outlet on the north side of the city that I am aware of), so I was really keen on this, Shoobiz, Scooter and Mollini, David Jones and Myer (Does anyone else remember the old Myer outlet in Sunshine with fond memories?!).

Sadly, I’d have to say, currently its a bit, well…meh.

Why?

Firstly, of the stores I’ve listed above, the only one that is currently open is Shoe Factory, which is the Shoo-biz, Scooter & Mollini group. When you get to the second half of the centre, there are still quite a few empty stores. Granted, it only opened a few days ago, but this does make you motor through the second half of the centre pretty quickly.

Secondly, my old favourite rant about outlet centre’s – not all the stores are actual outlets. The Novo Shoes store was predominently new season stock and had no more sale stock that a normal Novo Store (or at least, my local). Milu Shoes was another one where I really wouldn’t have called it an outlet store. It was interesting to note which stores had ‘outlet’ tacked to their logo and which just had their normal store signs.

So what’s currently open?

Shoe Factory, which is the afore-mentioned Mollini/Shoobiz/Scooter/Floresheim outlet is open, and although I didn’t find anything there, its pretty damn big for a shoe outlet. Most of the shoes on offer seem to be predominently from Shoobiz and some brands I didn’t expect to see such as Saachi and I Love Billy (small selection of both). I do not recall seeing one Mollini box in the whole place though, and there was significantly less Scooter shoes that Shoobiz.

One interesting thing to keep in mind is that many of the shoes are not futher marked down from the store sale price – and I found this to be most of the nice ones. Still, after scouring DFO a few weeks ago in an emergency bridesmaids shoes dress drama, it did cross my mind that I would have had a better chance of finding some nicer shoes here. Price-wise, in general I would say your are still looking at around roughly 60-70 for a pair of heels.

The Globalise outlet is also open, just across from the Shoe Factory, I found a few good deals in here, such as 2 pairs of Haviana’s for $30 and random Milk & Honey and One Teaspoon scattered throughout the store. One beef I has though is that whilst there were signs everywhere saying ‘at least 50% off all winter stock’, every single One Teaspoon winter item I picked up was still marked at full price. There was also a wall of shoes for $20, which included Keds in here. Generally I’d recommend this store for the girls, there was much more female than male stock.

The next store we hit was the randomest store of all, and probably my current favourite in the centre. Why random? Plunj sells a real mix of brands – its not often you find Zimmermann Swim and Lisa Ho swimwear sitting alongside Rip Curl! Plunj also seemed to have the best discounts – the aforementioned Zimmermann Swim white tiered dress was $120 (I think!), there was also quite a bit of Tigerlily, Wish, Insight, heaps of swimwear, and more summer stock that i saw in any other stores. Its such a funny store, the first half looks like street/skatewear store but the further in you go, the more party dresses and random designer goodies you find. Currently they have 25% or 30% off the marked price of most items, which seems like a pretty good deal. They also stocked Made U Look tee’s, which can be quite hard to track down in Australia, and when you do track them down they are majorly over-priced!

Other stores currently open are a Crabtree and Evelyn Outlet, Milu had some nice shoes, although sale items were very light on from what I saw. There is an MNG Outlet also, which I thought was pretty damn boring, but then I find most MNG stores boring so only take my word for it if you feel the same way. The Zu Shoes outlet seemed to be pretty popular, you had to fight your way to the shoe racks, as did the Sintra Factory Outlet. There was another store whose name now completely escapes me, which had an excellent range of your cheaper brands like Minkpink, Ladakh and the like.

So overall what’s the verdict?

I’m still a bit meh on this and whether I’ll bother with the whole 15 – 20 minute drive. I don’t think it’s worth a visit at the moment, unless there is a store you are specifically after, but I may give it another go if the Review, DJs & Myer outlets open. In all fairness to Brand Junction though, I do live a 2 minute drive from a DFO outlet, so I’m probably more partial to that simply because I’m not to phased if I drop in there and don’t pick up anything. I will give Brand Junction this though, the parking at 12pm on a Saturday was much easier than at DFO, which can be an arguement inducing painful experience with my darling husband swearing the whole way around the carpark. So give it some time, wait for the rest of the stores to open and then see what you think, would be the best advice I can offer!

Visit the Brand Junction website