A lot of retailers have gone this route in the last ten years.
What used to be "outlets" --where previous season retail stuff went for massive markdown--are usually now "clearance stores" in Nike parlance. You can find top of the line stuff at steep discount.
What more frequently pop up now are "factory outlets" where Nike will market a few top drawer items, like a single pair of current season tech fleece and a pair of Invincible runners at retail, and then push substandard "made for factory outlet" crap with the rest of the square footage. Lots of suburbanites duped into thinking they're buying the latest and greatest, but it's all garbage.
GAP / Banana Republic / Old Navy are notorious for this. Their "outlet" stores aren't really getting anything notable from previous seasons--its all subpar filler stamped with a GAP logo and then shuffled out for almost as much as their retail stores.