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A Nemo blog. Dealing with uncommon cents.

Photo courtesy of The NY Times

According to the NY Times, even luxury goods are not exempt from the faltering economy. High-end Fifth Avenue department stores including Bergdorf Goodman are luring in shoppers with enticingly deep discounts. Customers are now digging though designer handbags on tables with prices slashed upwards of 40%. The New Yorker’s Patricia Marx has even remarked that “Sixty percent off is the new black.”

Surprisingly, established luxury retailer Saks dug even deeper than its competitors, dropping the prices of much of its fall fashion up to 70 percent. Customers were so shocked that they assumed that many of the price tags were misprints.

A just released MasterCard Advisors report lists luxury goods sales as being of nearly 25% off this year when compared with last. The era revolving around the endless drive towards high-end consumption appears to be drying up fast.

The NY Times raises the question that everyone is pondering: With such deep discounts on luxury goods, consumers are left wondering what the astronomical mark-ups were in the past. And, now that they’ve witnessed these bargain basement prices, will they be willing to pay full price ever again?

With hard economic times now resonating worldwide, it was only a matter of time before online luxury retailers like Net-a-Porter had to adjust their marketing strategy. Before the recession, the goal was to sell unapologetically expensive designer clothing shipped in glamorous black boxes. Now, a new mass email features a photo of two 50’s era women sharing a secret with the headline of “You’ve Been Shopping – We Won’t Tell…” The subtext cheekily reads “Your items will arrive in an unbranded recycled brown paper bag and we’ll be the only ones who know.”

This newfound move towards more discretional shopping is in part due to the guilt complex with buying a piece of designer apparel that easily runs upwards of a few thousand dollars while many people are struggling to make ends meet. Conspicuous consumption is now a dirty word.

Even though consumer confidence has fallen to its lowest level in 40 years, a small percentage of the population wants to keep on shopping. They just don’t want family, neighbors and coworkers to know about it.

Image: The New York Times

In this faltering economy, if you still manage to have an extra $30,000 dollars to blow, there’s a room waiting for you. On the top floor (52nd, to be exact) of the Four Seasons Hotel in midtown New York City, you can live in the lap of luxury with access to a private butler, grand piano, health spa, a remote controlled bidet, a thermostat-adjusted floor, lasers in the bathtub that turn the water different colors and even a toilet that heats your prosterior and flushes with a remote control.

Clearly, this is the hotel room of choice for wayward CEOs with a Centurion Card in hand.