Can I use retails lots to visit without a sim owning them?

Yes it is:
- build retail store
- have a sim buy it and set on sale what you want to be sold
- sell the store

you can also hire the workers and set their outfits before selling it, but you need retail points for that so you either gotta cheat or actually play the retail part + you have to make sure you get the max amount of workers, cause once you sell the store it will automatically get the max amount and any workers not being there before selling will not have the assigned outfit.