Chaptzem Blog!      

Up and down Fifth Avenue, it is hard not to see red. Along the storied avenue, once immune to garish displays of retail desperation, shops of all persuasions are using crimson sale signs as bait to lure in skittish consumers.

Just as Warren E. Buffett said recently of stocks — that now is the time to scoop them up — so, too, is now an ideal moment to, say, grab a really cheap scoop-neck sweater at the Gap, which was among many stores offering “Friends and Family” discounts of 30 percent off the entire inventory this weekend.

Or, if one happens into Takashimaya, the deluxe, eclectic Japanese department store at Fifth Avenue between 54th and 55th Streets, was selling a $290 pair of black pony hair gloves for $199. On Monday, a sign in the window of H & M’s flagship shop at 51st Street advertised a one-day 30-percent-off sale on outerwear. Four blocks down at Ann Taylor, where sales signs line the window, a saleswoman said discounting had been under way “pretty much since Halloween,” with no end in sight. Red signs promised up to 30 percent off at Armani Exchange over the weekend, while the Cole Haan shop at Rockefeller Plaza was having more “whisper sales,” one clerk said, offering 30 percent off to whoever wandered in.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/nyregion/19bargains.html?_r=2&ei=5070&emc=eta1&pagewanted=print