Empty Shelves at Luxury Stores This Holiday Season?

ABC's Whitney Lloyd reports from New York: As the economy hesitates to right itself, well-heeled shoppers returning to luxury stores in search of the perfect Christmas gift will  find high-end retailers have returned to their exclusive roots this season. Gone are last year’s deep price cuts on rarely discounted designer pieces at such venerable stores as Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom. Instead shoppers will find fewer of the quilted Chanel handbags, Manolo Blahnik slingbacks and Helmut Lang ski jackets that are standard Christmas morning fashionista fare. The New York Times reports today that it’s a deliberate strategy by retailers eager to drive up sales by reminding customers  of luxury goods’ exclusivity. “Upscale stores want to train the customer that luxury equals exclusivity and that they cannot assume they can wait and they’re able to buy it on sale,” William Taubman, a mall owner told the Times. It is – as the Times reports – a risky strategy. Luxury goods often take a long time to manufacture, meaning that if stores sell out, they will be left with empty shelves as the holidays approach – and there is little evidence that the prospect of those empty shelves are prompting costumers to snag their gifts early. But retailers told the Times that the strategy appears to be working. They are selling more full-price merchandise today than they were a year ago, posting profits for the first time in months.