Do only the very wealthy pay retail these days? Seems like it. With so many discount shopping sites that sell high-end items, mere mortals can get said high-end items at low(er)-end prices. But is is there room for yet one more of these sites? LuxGoddess.com is hoping so. It recently joined the likes of Bluefly, ShopBop, and Gilt to offer upscale items at reduced prices. Here's what makes LuxGoddess different, however: It donates 10% of its proceeds to Bright Pink, a national nonprofit that provides education and support to young women who are at high risk for breast and ovarian cancer.

Calling itself "the premier site for today's fashion trendsetters looking for great deals on their favorite designer brands," the site carries well-known brands, with a number of items pulled from online stores, and covers the standard categories of apparel, shoes, beauty, and accessories. There's also a sale rack, which is a user's personal sale rack, based on her size and brand preferences.

Last year many stores found themselves stuck with too much inventory and not enough buyers. The resulting fallout led to a series of deep sales and a firm resolve not to let that happen again. This year we are seeing the reverse situation, shoppers with money who are finding less inventory to splurge on. Bloomberg has an interesting piece that suggests that luxury department stores, which have cut back on their orders in order to cope with declining sales, may end up losing customers who are frustrated with the lack of selection.

Retailers aren't exactly itching to stuff their stores. They aren't convinced that the shoppers are ready to storm the doors in droves and are still licking their wounds over the last year's discount days which led to reduced profits all around. They are also hoping that a little lack of supply will stimulate demand and get shoppers in when lines first arrive rather than waiting for discounts. Store executives have to order months in advance and last year's debacle has spooked some strategists. Some analysts suggest that the first stores to go back to the good old days of stuffed aisles may have a leg up on their competition.

Like my colleagues Annie and Alison, I braved Fashion Week, in particular, Fashion's Night Out on September 10. But I was fortunate to be in one serene place, The Shops at The Plaza. Entering at One East 58th Street, right near Central Park, The Shops at The Plaza immediately gives you a feeling of luxury shopping, but in a much more open environment than a small boutique because The Shops is 160,000 square feet on six levels.

The Shops features a unique gathering of one-of-a-kind jewelry designers and coveted boutique brands, many of which have chosen to open their first U.S. outpost exclusively here. Examples of the stores you'll find are Krigler, a fifth-generation fragrance house with Russian roots and French savoir-faire; Anna Hu, a Christie's New York and Van Cleef & Arpels veteran who specializes in creating stunning, one-of-a-kind pieces; Qiviuk, which offers unusual, high-quality clothing for men and women made of the cashmere-like Qiviuk fiber; and a new store to The Shops, the flagship location of New York fashion designer Douglas Hannant. I had the chance to chat with representatives from each of these stores, so watch Luxist for more on these brands.

Other stores at The Shops are MCM, Ghurka, Vertu, Morgenthal Frederics, Seize Sur Vingt, LTJ Arthur, GOODFORTUNE TENTHOUSANDTHINGS, Kenneth Jay Lane, Iradj Moini, Maurice Fine Jewelry, Helen Yarmak, Peter Lik Fine Photography, and Francesco Fino. Plus, now reopened is The Plaza Boutique, the hotel's own store, which offers high-end leather goods, porcelain glasses, fashionable men's shirts, and luxurious gift items.

As for beauty, The Shops has that area covered as well. The Plaza Beauty by Warren-Tricomi is a beauty destination and contemporary boutique divided by category, offering a brow bar, men's bar, fragrance bar, and skincare. (See photo.) Drawing from the worlds of hair care, skincare, and fragrance, The Plaza Beauty provides a sampling of the most luxurious, internationally-renowned brands, as well as rare, emerging lines, all hand-picked by Joel Warren and Edward Tricomi.

All that shopping and beautification may make you in need of a respite, or at least a snack. Stop by the Demel café, Parisian bookseller Assouline, the Caudalie Vinotherapie Spa, Warren-Tricomi Salon, or the Fitness Center by Radu Physical Culture to refuel and recharge.

The Plaza has undergone a $400 million, three-year, lobby-to-roof renovation and restoration, and it's amazing. Designated a New York City Landmark in 1969, it is also the only New York City hotel to be designated as a National Historic Landmark.

Fashion's Night Out, the largest shopping event in NYC history (brainchild of none other that Anna Wintour herself), took place on Thursday, September 10, and for those of us in the media (who try to be everywhere), it was a wild ride!

Over 700 shops participated in Fashion's Night Out; some selling Fashion's Night Out t-shirts to benefit the September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center, some collecting clothing for the NYC AIDS Fund, some with special sales, deals, and live music, and most with free-flowing champagne.

Armed with an extra pair of stilettos for alternating, this Luxist writer managed to get to David Yurman, Prada (above, this DJ played until The Rapture went on), D&G, Tahari, Pucci, and Lord & Taylor, just to name a few. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the night of shopping, celebrity sightings, drinking, and celebrating. If they ever do it again, I suggest you all head for the Upper East Side where the parties were a little calmer and lots of fun -- Soho was a madhouse; in parts you couldn't even walk down the street, and it was unusually rampant with underage drinkers (capitalizing on the free alcohol). I saw them carding at D&G ... but that was the only place I saw. I'd imagine there were a lot of tearful explanations in the wee hours in homes across the tri-state area, and Fashion's Morning After was probably pretty rough for some. But that's not what the night was about. The night was about charity, celebrating fashion, and helping kickstart the economy. I think on the whole, New York City had a lot of fun!

If you weren't able to get to NYC, check out the gallery below for some photos of the festivities!

For the past year or so I've been a little obsessed with the state of shopping malls. Some stories I've read have said that the shopping mall is evolving into more of an outdoor shopping venue such as the Grove in Los Angeles, others have said that its disappearing entirely. One thing is for certain many malls have a lot of vacant space lately, partly because some of those anchor department stores are disappearing or consolidating. All that vacant space is forcing mall owners to get creative. One mall, the Westfield North County Shopping Mall in Escondido near San Diego, California may move a supermarket into the area that once housed a Robinsons-May store.

Big box retailers like Costco have also moved into some malls, taking over prized anchor spots vacated by department stores. Westfield already has a Gelson's Market at Westfield Century City in Los Angeles and a Bristol Farms at Westfield San Francisco Centre and has found that overall mall sales have increased as the mall becomes one-stop shopping. There's a hope that the big retailers will lift the sales of the smaller specialty stores in the same way that department stores did in the past.

Other ideas for attracting patrons to malls including indoor skating rinks, spas and community centers. Another type of mall that seems to be thriving is the specialty mall. The Christian Science Monitor recently had an interesting piece on the rise of ethnic malls which have continued to thrive even in a tough economy. This hints at an idea that for some malls the feature might not be in trying to appeal to everyone just to get them in the door but instead focusing on a select population of shoppers who will remain loyal.

More bad news for Saks Fifth Avenue. As our sister blog Daily Finance reported, Saks has released its second quarter results beating analysts' expectations by posting a loss of $54.5 million, or 39 cents per share on sales of $561.7 million. Same store sales were down 15.5 percent. None of this is too surprising, luxury shopping has been taking a huge hit in this economy. But what is compelling is that Saks saving grace may end up being its discount outlets. An AP story said that the less-expensive Off 5th stores are doing better than Saks' full-price stores. This news comes as Nordstrom, which has also been having a rough time in this market has announced that is expanding its discount chain, Nordstrom Rack. The question I have is with the boom of outlet stores and the success of discount stores like Marshalls and TJ Maxx, who will be left to buy the items at their original prices? The discount market relies on the fact that department stores exist and that some buyers are willing to pay the premium to have their choice of designer goods. If the luxury brand buyers switch to buying the brands only at discounted rates it remains to be seen how the structure of shopping will change. I suppose the good news in this for luxury retailers is that the shopping impulse is alive and well in U.S. consumers, they just aren't willing to spend the big bucks currently.

There's likely no end in sight to the number of iPhone apps to come. So I'm going to tell you about one more, OK? You'll thank me. Actually, thank The New York Times: Designer fashion hub Net-a-Porter.com released its iPhone application, the Net-App, in mid-July. Shoppers can browse handbags, clothes and shoes; read the site's weekly fashion stories; and make purchases. The Times noted that even though some people use their cell phones to buy virtual goods to use in mobile games or e-books to read on their phones, the masses have not shown much willingness to buy physical goods - especially expensive ones - from their cell phones. (Kind of like how early online purchases, of anything, were made by the few and the brave; now, it's second nature.)

But Net-a-Porter.com, which went live in 2000 and states it has 1.8 million visitors a month, succeeded in getting people to buy $4,000 gowns and $1,000 stilettos on the Web, so iPhone app success may be in sight. The potential for shopping on phones "is massive," said Alison Loehnis, v.p. of sales and marketing at Net-a-Porter.com, in the Times. "We feel very strongly that third-generation technology is the new shop window. No one wants to be bound to their computer anymore."

Net-a-Porter.com is not the first to offer an iPhone shopping app: there's Lucky at Your Service from Lucky magazine and ShopStyle Mobile from ShopStyle. Net-a-Porter, however, developed a tool it calls ClosetFlow, which shows users small images of new products to thumb through. Shoppers can zoom in, flip the phone to look at items from different directions, and read more detailed information about them. The shopper can add the items to a wish list to access later from a computer or buy from within the application, without opening a separate browser window.

Loehnis noted in the article: "Our customers love to shop from their homes or offices, but we want our customers to be able to shop from a cab or while waiting in line and really maximize what little free time they have."

[Thanks to my savvy sister, GP]

Popular luxury fashion website, eLuxury is getting out of the selling business and is closing down retail operations. The company has issued a press release saying that they will launch a new editorial destination later this year. The website sold brands like Louis Vuitton, Dior, Fendi and others. While it's sad to see eLuxury go, if you want to shop on the site, now is the time. The discounts are deep, the Dolce & Gabbana halter dress shown at right was $3,670 but is now $734. You can shop now through June 26.

I've written about the troubles befalling American malls but it's tough in Russia too. The AP reports that the economic crisis and low oil prices are starting to make Moscow's popular GUM shopping center on Red Square look a bit like a ghost town. Some boutiques are closing while others are doing the same thing that their U.S counterparts are doing, offering deep discounts to lure anyone who might still be shopping. Russia has been a tremendous growth area for many international brands over the past few years as Russians became accustomed to increased spending power. Now it seems that they've followed the rest of the world into shopping retreat.

Back in October I mentioned that the managing director of Mercury, the country's biggest luxury goods group has said that sales have fallen at the popular TsUM shopping center. Mercury's stores sell many of the world's top luxury brands, everything from Gucci to Maserati cars and Chopard jewelry through the TsUM department store and other luxury shops.

Also it was recently announced that this year's Moscow World Fine Art Fair, set to take place at the end of May, has been canceled. The cancellation was mainly due to troubles getting sufficient sponsorship to cover the costs of the fair. ArtInfo reports that only a few dealers had pulled out of the fair but cancellations from Bulgari and Harry Winston prompted the organizers to cancel now rather than months from now when the economic crisis could be even worse. They hope to bring the fair back next year.

The Telegraph has reported the UK will again increase the duty-free limit for British travelers heading to non-EU countries in 2009. The current limit is now at £340, up from the recent increase to £300 in early December of 2008 from just £145.

Partly based on research that indicates up to 1 in 5 Brits plan to travel to the U.S. in the New Year and half of UK residents surveyed planned some kind of international travel in 2009, the rise will allow for quite a bit more shopping if exchange rates don't fall dramatically.

It looks like all those door-busting sales didn't do much good this holiday season and it could mean that some malls may be permanently out of business. The slowest retail holiday season in 38 years could end up dooming 2,000 to 3,000 malls by the middle of the year with an estimated 200,000 more businesses shutting down. Even those that are still around will be cutting back on store locations, shutting down stores that aren't making good sales numbers. An ABC News article quotes Howard Davidowitz, the chairman of retail consulting firm Davidowitz & Associates who says that: "The American standard of living is changing forever."

At the beginning of 2008 we mentioned the dying out of the traditional indoor shopping mall which was being replaced by outdoor shopping areas. But the recent economic fallout is affecting both the indoor and outdoor kinds of shopping malls as what is now changing isn't how people shop but whether or not they shop at all.

Tracey Ross, which has held a prominent place in the L.A. retail scene for the past 18 years, has just announced it will close on New Year's Eve in a terse statement to WWD: "Of course it's the economy."

Known for its high-end collection of designers like Peter Som, Stella McCartney and Thakoon, the shop catered to celebs including Kate Hudson and many of LA's well-known tastemakers.

Owner Tracey Ross lamented that it has become "impossible to compete" when mega-retailers like Saks Fifth Avenue are marking down merchandise to 80% off retail.

A couple of days ago, my colleague Jared Paul Stern reported that Chanel was pulling the plug on their fancy world-traveling global art installation designed by Zaha Hadid. It seems that's not the only penny-pinching the French luxury brand had in mind. According to the Guardian, Chanel is also cutting 200 jobs. The staff cuts are a direct result of declining sales, part of the overall slide in luxury spending that was not alleviated by the recent holiday shopping season. Among the jobs are 16 posts at the brand's boutique on rue Cambon in Paris. The jobs represent almost 10% of the company's production workforce.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair recently did some shopping in the Knightsbridge area of London in fine style. Blair had the whole Armani store to himself. Giorgio Armani's entire flagship London store was opened an hour early just for him. A passerby told the Daily Mail that Blair was there with four bodyguards as well as a personal Armani shopper and a stylist. He spent several thousand pounds on men's clothing from Armani's top-of-the-range 'black label', including casual trousers and jackets but no suits. Blair is a smart shopper too, he got in on the first day of Armani's sale and so he picked up items at up to a 50% discount.

For those who do some of their holiday shopping on eBay there's a new service to help find deals. Many people who list on eBay don't always spell the designer names of products properly. Savvy eBayers have been known to find these auctions and bid on them since the prices will be lower. But now the secret is out and a new website called Typo Buddy helps find misspelled auctions on eBay and Craigslist. Type in a name and it will bring up a list of misspelled auctions. The site also list the top ten misspellings including Abercrombie, Louis Vuitton and Callaway Golf but also some surprises including ipod, laptop and Disney.

[via Globe and Mail]