Luxury spending is looking like a strong market again: A recent Associated Press report looked at how Saks is maintaining its appeal to high-end shoppers, while acknowledging that "the volatility in the stock market and the financial crisis in Europe are creating some challenges." Earlier in the spring, Saks had to step up discounting, but the latest results, which beat Wall Street estimates, show solid spending by its wealthy clientele.
Saks is renovating a string of locations, which include an expanded shoe department. Notably, over the past five years, the company has renovated nearly every floor of its New York flagship store.
And the biggest news: This month, Saks will unveil its expanded 10022-Shoe department in the New York store, taking over the part of the eighth floor it didn't already occupy. The shoe department's space will grow more than 40 percent and will include the first Louis Vuitton shoe shop within a department store.
Saks executives noted that the 10022-Shoe department is the second-most productive floor in the Manhattan flagship. (The numbers come from the floor's dedicated zipcode. That's how big the space is: Some cities just have a single zipcode, but Saks' New York shoe store gets one all to itself.)