It’s been over 6 years since I worked for them but Clearance stores used to be vastly different from Factory stores when I was there. Factory Stores are a hybrid blend of moving discontinued products with special-ordered product made specifically for the stores, much more towards the latter. Clearance stores were 100% getting rid of product from Inline stores and Return-to-Vendor from retailers.
For me it would absolutely more advantageous to hit a Clearance Store because the pricing was much cheaper and the opportunity for finds was far higher, albeit fully random. I know a lot has changed since then and not sure how much is due to pandemic supply chain leaving stores without any good product.