<p>laxmom, send me a pm with your email adress, and I’ll send you an invite to join Rue La LA—offer is open to all. I have made one purchase and was quite satisfied.</p>
<p>I volunteer with the Girl Scout product sales on every level from Council wide, service unit (I’ll be helping about 50 troop cookie mgrs this year), my daughters troop of 23, and my daughter…and I HATE unsold cookies. We do a last chance booth sale for all those with just a few miscellaneous boxes left. I really can see why the stores have reduced their inventories…but I was disappointed not to pick up some gift bags this morning.</p>
<p>Starbucks had virtually no gift packages…the kind with coffee or tea samplers, some cookies or the like…which my H had gotten for his secretary the past few years to give along with a gift card. And a friend could find no summer sausage, a gift she has given traditionally, at any Costco in our area.</p>
<p>Well…I went to Big Lots today and dropped $50+ on Christmas gifts for NEXT year which I’ll just put in my closet. I also was at Kohls where the holiday “inventory” was VERY picked over. I did get two darling ornaments for my kids…for NEXT Christmas. </p>
<p>Re:Ruelala…I got an invite and I’m a member (thanks BB) but I’m sorry…what am I missing? Those “bargain items” are quite expensive!! Of course if you’re used to paying full price, I suppose they are a bargain. I’m was anticipating some sort of bargain every now and then. Maybe after the new year?</p>
<p>Thanks for the tip, I’ll have to check out Big Lots today, and possibly stop by Kohls, we have a new one it town and I forgot it was there. I usually do a lot of my Christmas shopping this time of year, but with inventories so much lower I may have to do it throughout the year.</p>
<p>I tend to agree that Ruelala is expensive, but I did get a great deal on the one item I bought–I had some credits (although I don’t know why) so I got an additional discount.</p>
<p>It seems the retail stores now are just showrooms or place for clearance items. Even Wal Mart website says items are not available in local stores. And online price is cheaper.</p>
<p>Had the opposite experience at our local Banana Republic and J. Crew–lots of items at good reductions and in my D’s size; also decent selection at Bloomingdale’s but hard to sort through because the displays were cluttered and somewhat untidy.</p>
<p>…So much for the ‘sights and sounds of the season’! :(</p>
<p>At least 50% of it for me used to be the enjoyment of the displays, options, wraps, scents, – ‘drinking it all in,’ so to speak. Not very much fun anymore for romantics like Yours Truly.</p>
<p>Before Christmas, I went all over the places to look for pointsettias. I finally found 2 tiny pots at Trader Joe’s, so it’s not your imagination.</p>
<p>I was surprised to find at my favorite department store (a really big, well-known one) that “all stock is on the floor.” Wow, shoes and EVERYTHING??? No EMU’s for DW this year … all sold out, in all three colors! I wanted to buy a replacement Lenox wine class for one I’d “modified by dropping.” I brought the display item to the cash register and was told it was the only one in the store. Sheesh. What if I wanted two?</p>
<p>As an independent retailer, it’s quite frustrating to be treated as the showroom for the world wide webstores.</p>
<p>It’s not uncommon for people to come into the shop and ask all kinds of questions about specific products and then leave to purchase the items elsewhere for cheaper. To add insult to injury, they’ll then return and ask me to help assemble or troubleshoot their item.</p>
<p>I noticed low inventories. I could actually see floor space - blank floor space at the local Borders Books store (next to Northwestern Univ). I was looking for a book and it was available only online. Companies also are low on inventory because a popular floor plan financing company filed for bankruptcy this fall.</p>
<p>I spent 3 hours to find the right size for a pair of Guess boots last Tuesday night but I could not. I even asked the store clerks to check stock in stores in town and neighboring towns but they said no one had. This made me choose a different type of shoes instead of waiting to for luck on the next night.</p>
<p>Obviously cnp55 and I need to start a counter-movement – kind of like The Slow Food Movement. (Yes, that’s for real.)</p>
<p>I can do what someone else is suggesting for herself, and “finish shopping” in July, but then it’s really just about gift-purchases and is not embedded in all the seasonal nuances. Just FYI, I am not, when it comes to Xmas gifts, a “last-minute” person; never have been. When my children were younger I would collect things for loved ones (not just them) throughout the year. But I still longed for the actual season to (1) get seasonal items (!) (2) discover items and gift gestures I hadn’t thought of until they were displayed/suggested (3) appreciate the sensory aspects (4) get caught up in the joy/anticipation. </p>
<p>Scratch 'n sniff online, anyone? And online is so solitary! No one enjoys the sense of participating in more of a live community of other shoppers & families? That’s really sad to me…</p>
<p>Re: boots…went to Famous Footwear yesterday and bought a pair of mid calf high Bearpaws in black for $59. They had a TON of these. It’s my second pair and they wear as well…and looks as nice as my daughters (three times the price) UGGS.</p>
<p>Re: bookstores…I’m an online convert…largely because the last five or six times I’ve been in a Borders or B/N, they have NOT had my book and have offered to order it for me. Heck…I can do that MYSELF.</p>
<p>Oh boy, no I do not enjoy the sense of participating in a live community of shoppers! I do, however, enjoy hearing the UPS man roar up my lane and shut off his diesel truck. Then again, if the economy depended on people like me, we’d have faltered long ago, as I detest all shopping.</p>
<p>I don’t agree about ‘bottoming out’. I think the low inventory was on purpose. Stores are simply ordering much, much less and ordering it much closer to their needs. I say this because I know a shearling coat manufacturer who used to get orders 9-12 months ahead. His coats were shipped out in June. Now, the orders are a fraction of what they used to be and he’s barely getting those orders by late fall. </p>
<p>It may be that we’re bottoming out, but I also think people are staying far, far away from anything that bespeaks “luxury” as it once did.</p>