Post Christmas Post: Everything's On Sale
December 28, 2009
So we have had a nice few days off, and we're not done yet. Since half of the city is on vacation, you can expect light posting this week.
As for sale news, with a few exceptions, pretty much every store is in clearance mode to some extent. Even Gilt Groupe is holding final sales for women this week. Don't expect to find a bonanza of deep markdowns out in the shops like you saw a year ago, however. Inventory levels are not nearly as high as they were last year, and some stores have not gone past 40% off. Lots of retailers who were only too happy to slash prices at the end of last year are now much more prudently stocked with far less aggressive markdowns, and Holiday business appears, for the most part, to have met their more modest expectations. If you have any extra cash rattling around after your Holiday shopping, you still shouldn't have any trouble disposing of it in New York. Here's a couple of things to keep in mind:
We'll be back to full speed next Monday.
That is all.
UPDATE: It turns out that the Paul Smith stores took their first markdowns just this morning (Monday) with 30% off selected merchandise. It's about time, though we maintain that beginning reductions a few days after Christmas still shows enormous restraint.
As for sale news, with a few exceptions, pretty much every store is in clearance mode to some extent. Even Gilt Groupe is holding final sales for women this week. Don't expect to find a bonanza of deep markdowns out in the shops like you saw a year ago, however. Inventory levels are not nearly as high as they were last year, and some stores have not gone past 40% off. Lots of retailers who were only too happy to slash prices at the end of last year are now much more prudently stocked with far less aggressive markdowns, and Holiday business appears, for the most part, to have met their more modest expectations. If you have any extra cash rattling around after your Holiday shopping, you still shouldn't have any trouble disposing of it in New York. Here's a couple of things to keep in mind:
• Some chains like J.Crew regularly post deeper markdowns in their stores than they do on line in certain regions, particularly New York. For example, there are lots of men's shirts on sale at JCrew.com marked down from $60-65 to $39.99 with an extra 20% off, but in the stores, they are marked down to $19.99 with an extra 30% off. That's 75% off, or more —certainly a better price than the J.Crew sample sales that go on periodically in midtown. Bergdorf's, Saks and Neiman Marcus tend to have better clearance prices in-store as well because their online divisions are often run as wholly separate divisions.Of course, if you are shopped out like us, you could spend the just spend the week going to the movies.
• There are still some holdouts like Paul Smith, where we saw not a single sale tag, but then he also has a special clearance store in Williamsburg, so it may be worth it to go out of our way if you are jonesing for a bargain. Inexplicably, his UK online store is reduced, but not his US version. So cruel.
We'll be back to full speed next Monday.
That is all.
UPDATE: It turns out that the Paul Smith stores took their first markdowns just this morning (Monday) with 30% off selected merchandise. It's about time, though we maintain that beginning reductions a few days after Christmas still shows enormous restraint.
I popped into the Paul Smith sale shop in Williamsburg last night where fall merchandise is up to 70 percent off. Some items were still pretty pricey but there were deals on shirts, shoes, sweaters and scarves.
http://samplesally.com/
Posted by: sample sally | December 29, 2009 at 01:09 PM