Rapid Travel Chai

With the US turned from football and turkey to shopping today, New York’s sample sales are a way to capture some of the feeding frenzy excitement of Black Friday nearly every day of the year. The Rapid Traveler is no expert in this field, there are even paid alert services for the devoted, but has occasionally enjoyed sample sales, such as a Skagen one a few years back, his favorite watch brand, and everyone on his gift list that year got Skagen watches.

Photo by The Consumerist

Sample sales are typically in nondescript spaces in central Manhattan locations. They run for several days but the vultures pounce fast. Cheesy to say, perhaps, but there is something fun about dropping in on these sales, as if a real insider. It is probably best to know the actual value of the items in advance, and to set spending limits as if heading to a casino, because they employ all the tricks in the book to encourage fast and unbridled spending.

Three reliable resources are:

• Time Out New York Shopping (from the shopping page, click ‘sales & deals,’ which provides a link to that week’s sales, sorry, the direct url changes weekly so the extra navigation is required).
• New York Magazine Sales & Bargains (lumps in sample sales and others).
• The Vogue City.

Readers, what sample sales tips do you have?