How to bag a designer purse and save money online

An S.A. at Chloe Las Vegas models a bag for a customer

I feel like we’ve been to the wars and back navigating all the ways to shop a purse deal on ebay and locally in St. Louis MO. The final chapter in our saga involves more relaxing and downright fun research. Hopefully the only anxiety you might incur revolves around jockeying to be the first to steal the deal.

 
Step Four. Put these websites in your favorites and look at them several times a day:

The Consignment Stores. Thank God so many lovely and mercenary women thought it through and realized that fashionistas needed a place to buy and sell purses safely. Heck – you can find sales here too! And the best part is everything is risk free.

• Ann’s Fabulous Finds is wonderful for finding lots of brands and more than  just bags. 
• Real Deal Collection specializes in Balenciaga.
• ECLuxe Boutique (an ebay boutique) sends email updates regularly on the most divine stock.
• Sabine’s Boutique always has chic, high end selections to drool over.
• Constylement.com gets picked over very quickly. Shop often!
• Let-trade.com is the crème de la crème of international consignment stores.
• Luxepurses.com offers just what the name says with new and consignment pieces.
• Fashionphile.com is the place for all things luxury at a great price.
• Yoogiscloset.com is run by a very savvy merchandiser and is chock full of goodies.

Online Retailers. I couldn’t possibly list every single one but the stores specified here generate a lot of traffic from shoppers in the know. Familiarize yourself with their sales schedules and keep the phone numbers of any S.A. handy. As for the grand dames of luxury – Saks, Neimans, Bloomingdales, Nordstrom, Bergdorf Goodman and Barneys – they need no introduction. If you are not shopping these already to see the latest in fashion, there is no hope for you. When the sale bags hit the sites -  burn rubber baby!

• Eluxury.com is the exclusive resource for Louis Vuitton. Sales happen on their other bags.
• Bag Borrow or Steal rents bags and sells them afterwards at great outlet prices.
• Net-A-Porter is a designer shopping paradise with all the latest hard to find looks.
• Aloha Rag ‘s shop is in Hawaii (as well as NYC) so there is no tax to the mainland. Yippee!
• Asos.com is the UK’s largest online independent fashion retailer. Watch for their sales.
• Bob Ellis Shoes offers purses as well as shoes with great sales to boot.
• Luisaviaroma in Italy stocks hard to find Chloe and Balenciaga. The sales are TDF.

Bargain meccas. While the above retailers offer full price merchandise and periodic sales, these online websites are all about off price deals only. Better yet, some provide sales on top of sales.

• Bluefly.com is the best known and famously carries it all.
• Overstock.com surprisingly has a great selection of designer bags.
• Smartbargains.com also amazes with their deals on the latest and greatest purses.
• Koodos.com is a British site but they ship all over the world offering up to 70% off luxury items.
• The Outnet.com is the newest entry in the off price arena and is affiliated with Net-a-Porter.
• Diabro.net with a mysterious Japanese connection, offers cool stuff at below retail prices.
• Craigslist may post ads for bags. Today they busted a huge Craigslist prostitution ring. Uh huh.
• Amazon.com is worth looking into since there appears to be nothing they can’t sell.

Private Sale Websites. You must register at these new club-type shopping sites to enter their secret sales. Teasers are broadcast in advance alerting you to some of the imminent bargains. To have first dibs you pay a higher premium. Deals here rock but are hard to navigate.

• Hautelook.com has bargains practically every day but not necessarily on purses.
• Ideeli.com is a members-only shopping community that is by invite only. Sorry.
• Rue La La looks promising to me. You need someone to recommend you first though. Good luck!

Balenciaga, Gucci, Dior, and Valentino and Louis Vuitton are some of the elite design houses offering online shopping. Other top tier brands will give you a peek at the new season’s lines but it is a cold day in h-e-double chopsticks before any of them will sell off a website much less mark anything down.

That’s the gist of it all for now babies. If you have a secret shopping tip of your own – I think you owe me!