Halloween hasn’t arrived yet and already retailers are spooked by what the upcoming holiday season will bring. SmallCapInvestor.com spoke with a panel of experts to gauge just how lackluster this holiday sales season will be, and to gain insight into retailers' strategies and overarching trends. This is part 3 of a 3-part series.

Are you seeing or do you expect to see sales erosion from the upper echelon?

Reed: “I don’t expect to see a tremendous amount of erosion. I do think your affluent area will be impacted, but people will be looking for last year’s styles and I think you’ll also see outlet malls and folks who have off-priced brands do very well. So the affluent will spend money, but they’ll spend it more carefully. Now that the dollar has rebounded, foreigners who have been propping up Northeastern retailers are going to see a slowing in sales.”

Van Sinderen: “Absolutely. I think it will be across the board. Luxury is not immune to this slowdown. Think about the impact of the financial markets on the people who have a lot of money in the market. They’re hurting as well. We’ve already seen that reflected in Nordstroms’ and Neiman’s numbers.”

Gonzalez: “Absolutely, except for the savvy luxury brands. Take Louis Vuitton, for example. With the price of the euro, they know what the luxury tax coming in is, the price of the euro, the weak dollar. They’re committing luxury suicide. So, they started manufacturing their opening price points domestically, manufacturing in the United States.”

Liebmann: “Though the affluent shopper probably has the money, he/she is now feeling the pain of this economic situation, and is probably in the mind set of 1) I don’t know what the next few months will look like, 2) I don’t know what my bonuses will look like, and 3) and I’m going to pull my head in for a while. I really don’t need anything else and maybe I’ll stick to the necessities or maybe I’ll shop cheaper. We expect them to potentially pull back from the department or specialty store channels and do more necessity shopping in some of the more value-oriented . . .

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