The holidays are coming up much too quick. And while plenty of shoppers will end of trampling over one another on Black Friday, you may find yourself wanting to avoid chaotic scenes like that. You want to find great, inexpensive gifts at sale or maybe liquidated prices.

So rather than trudge through crowded Walmarts and Kmarts, maybe you can drive out to a shopping center that is not as crowded nor chaotic. It’s not the mall because chaos and claustrophobia rules there, especially during the holidays. In Southern California, outlet stores are a fine place to go shopping and find a discount.

In SoCal, you’ll find plenty of outlet stores outside of the county lines. You may have to drive out a good 100 miles plus to get to one of these outlet center. And once you get there, you will find that these centers are gigantic, housing over 100 different stores and boutiques. And these are the same stores you will find at your local mall.

The only difference is that the items found at the outlet stores are sale, discount and overstocked items. Basically, these items found there are the ones that did not sell or were past their time or possibly was way too stocked at normal stores. It doesn’t matter what the history of the items are, what matters is that their prices have come down substantially.

Visit any outlet center in the Los Angeles and Las Vegas regions, you will find big name brands from Nike, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Coach and LaCoste. And they all carry sale priced items. The stores primary goal is to get rid of all their merchandise -- and since the outlet stores already promote sale price, it doesn’t mean prices won’t go any lower.

Even sale items get sale prices. Expect even bigger discounts and specials at these stores. The prices and mark-offs get so low that you don’t even have to bargain. So always expect the unexpected when shopping at the outlets. But one thing to expect is that the outlets don’t have the same upkeeping as the normal stores. It won’t be the same clean and organized shopping experience. As most sale items are merchandised in a store -- you will see a lot of things strewn about and placed anywhere. That is the nature of outlet stores.

The bigger stores ship all their overstocks and sale items to the outlets for them to liquidate. So you’re going to get a mix up of various goods from different lines and seasons. But that itself is easy to take when everything is on sale. The outlet stores can get busy, even during the holidays, but some of them are open air malls and with the high number of stores around, shoppers don’t get bottlenecked in one store. It’s safe to shop, explore and save.

Image credit: oakbrookterracehotels on Flickr