Come Sale Away, Come Sale Away, Come SALE AWAY WITH ME!

Bad puns of Styx lyrics have been occupying my brain space far too often because of all the recent second cut sales. I went brick and mortar shopping with a friend last weekend and discovered quite a few places made recent mark downs. I wasn't in the market for anything specific so I mostly browsed, window shopped, and tried on things for fun but she scored some fantastic deals at Anthropologie, Footloose, and Chick Downtown. I did get a great deal on a pair of marc by marc jacobs pumps with a mid heel at Footloose. We also went to Saks but both managed to leave without anything.

Chick Downtown's Pittsburgh headquarters seems to be in transition. The boutique space used function as the mostly full-priced showcase for their website. I went there a while ago to see about trying on a "final sale," nonreturnable item from the website and was told that they don't keep their sale items in the boutique space. This past weekend I witnessed a direct reversal of that strategy.

Their brick and mortar retail space is now their outlet.

This week, Barney's and Neiman Marcus (both the websites and stores) took an additional 25% off their sale prices. Bloomingdales.com ran their "Spend more, Save more" promotion. And today, Saks took an additional 33% off designer sale prices. Nordstrom just did their second mark down. Net-A-Porter also took an additional 20% off sale prices.

Today is the last day of the online Kate Spade sample sale and they are deducting an additional 30% off when you add items to your cart.

There are lots of great deals out there! I have considered beginning my holiday shopping EXTRA early this year just in case. If the NY Times Sunday Styles section's analysis is correct then serious retail restructuring will render the sales of fall and early winter to be far less enticing and far less amply stocked.