advice please is it better to visit Woodbury common or go to the Meadowlands centre for shopping i am staying centre of manhatten and will be using public transport i can go on either a friday or saturday

Woodbury is easier by public transport because it's one large mall - although it is much further away. The stores also tend to be mid and high end.

Meadowlands is much more spread out - with a series of small malls and a bunch of true factory outlets - sometimes several blocks from each other. There is more of a range from discounters through some more upscale places.

Just a word of advice, if you can go on Friday rather than Saturday you will be much better off...Woodbury Commons gets PACKED with shoppers on the weekends.

There is also Jersey Gardens. You should have a look at the various websites and compare the stores and see which have most of what you want.

Jersey Gardens is much closer (half hour by bus from Port Authority), little or no sales tax, more middle of the road stores and I think it's enclosed. This is not nec. an all day affair.
http://jerseygardens.com/

Woodbury is an hour and a half trip, $35 bus fare, many high end stores (Chanel, Gucci, Prada) as well as Ralph Lauren etc. Not enclosed.

Meadowlands shopping info
http://www.secaucus.org/shopping.html

Woodbury Common has about 220 stores. I believe that it's the largest outlet in the East. And not just high end shops. For example, you'll find Gap, Reebok, Nike, Jockey, Oshkosh, Liz Claiborne, Eddie Bauer, just to mention a few non-high-end shops.