Business Models I Don't Get

Every morning, coming out of Penn Station in lovely midtown Manhattan, I pass a bunch of guys with signs touting their bus trips to the outlet mall in Woodbury Common. These trips seem to run about $35.

And I can't understand why this is a viable business at all.

If you're already in Manhattan, one of the pieces of land on Earth most densely packed with retail opportunities -- and which is very well covered with mass transit to get you to those retail opportunities -- why on earth would you pay that much to take a bus an hour north to a wind-swept plain where you can buy things at very similar prices to the place where you already are?

Maybe people enjoy the bus, but it looks to me like a tax on not realizing the actual opportunities in the city itself. I find it hard to believe you can't get 99% of the products for sale there as cheap or cheaper in the city itself. (Yes, if you're spending thousands of dollars, the extra NYC tax probably adds up. But if you're spending thousands of dollars, you're a) not doing it in an outlet mall and 2) not riding on a bus.)

(Note: I have been to Woodbury Common, more than once, because I live in the suburbs and own a car. But I'd be blissfully happy never to go there again. It has no appeal besides the raw ability to spend money on goods: it's generally cold and windy and mostly outdoors.)