Luxury Brands Yield to Discounts Despite Push to Stay Exclusive
- High-end goods category saw steepest volume of discounting
- Visits to brick-and-mortar stores down less than 1 percent
Apparel and handbag makers’ efforts to wean customers from discounts are off to a rocky start this holiday season.
Take Michael Kors’s Jet Set Leather shoulder bag, selling at a 57 percent discount on the company’s website Monday for $149, or a black silk Prada blouse priced 40 percent lower at $809 at Barneys New York. Those items aren’t outliers, according to researcher Edited, which said luxury labels and retailers saw the industry’s highest volume of markdowns over the Black Friday weekend, followed by premium brands.