Obviously, this is the magic of venture capital and outside of investing in a publicly traded venture BDC like Harris and Harris (Ticker: TINY), there’s not much we at home investors can do to get in on the ground floor. But, with up and coming retailers, we can still win! Heck, everyone remembers when Zappos was a low-price retailer instead of just a “customer service focused” retailer. Those were good days weren’t they?

Well, it seems a new trend is hitting the web. “Private” members-only luxury sample sale sites.  These retailers focus on getting limited quantities of luxury brand items and selling them for firesale prices. Obviously, sales last a limited time and items typically run out fast. As luxury retailers struggle in the current market environment, private sample sale websites have become a favorite way to liquidate past seasons’ inventory without risking the brand image (i.e. falling into the discount vortex). Sale prices are fleeting and consumers never get a chance to get accustomed to being able to get a luxury brand’s wares for less. In fact, the sales may only help reinforce the “aspirational” quality of these brands. By now, I’m sure you’re dying to know what sites I’m talking about. Never fear. The Curious Investor is here with the skinny and I’ve got invites for all my readers as well.

Gilt Groupe seems to be the mother of the main private, sample sale retailers in the U.S. With 1.4 million members, it’s growing like a weed and predicts that it will grow sales from $140 million this year to $400 million next year. They’re also hiring like a crazy so those of you looking for a job, head on over and take a look at their careers page. Gilt is women’s focused but men’s brands have been coming fast and furious. The main site – Gilt Groupe – focuses on established brands like Ralph Lauren, Guess, Barker Black, Dior, etc. and features apparel, accessories (handbags, shoes, watches, etc.), beauty products and home interior products. After using the site for a while, my guess is that the Company takes inventory for some sales and these sales are the fastest to sell out and typically only last 24 hours. Some other sales seem to be drop shipped and you can tell by the 2-3 week wait time for delivery on some products. Overall, this site definitely has the best and most regularly updated selection, but the drop shipping makes for a rather irksome customer experience. Gilt is also launching a travel website – JetSetter – and has already launched a women’s only site – Gilt Fuse – so keep your eyes peeled for even more great bargains on other types of products. You can access all sites with one account and your invite is right here.

Rue La La is yet another competitor and supposedly is on track for $130 million in sales this year. The site sets itself up as “mini boutiques” and sells all sorts of aspirational products. I’ve seen a Cuisinart sale and there’s an upcoming sale on Patz and Hall wines. There’s cutlery, jewelry, and just about anything you’ve probably ogled but not had the money to buy. Prices range, but it seems the initial sales tend to be more expensive than on Gilt (but still 40-60% off of retail price). In contrast to Gilt, which seems to have inventories so limited that everything sells in the first go, Rue La La is currently running “final sales” for many of the apparel brands for which prices have been lowered even more! The benefit at Rue La La is also that sales typically last more than one day and most products ship in 3 to 4 days which makes it a bit easier to spend some time thinking about what you want to buy rather than the impulse feel of Gilt. Again, your invite is right here.
Finally, Haute Look. Haute look has womens, mens, and kids gear as well as home goods. The site isn’t quite as pretty as Rue La La, but the concept is similar. Individual “boutiques” for each brand and staggered sales opening at different points each day. The collection is a bit more eclectic and not quite as “couture” as the previous two sites. For example, there’s currently a sale for sports memorabilia. I haven’t spent enough time digging through Haute Look, but you can now get there before me! Here’s your invite.

A cute one-liner to end the last night’s SNL:Weekend Update is surprisingly apt. Last week marked the first time we’ve seen four consecutive positive closes in the markets since 2007. Those of us with long biases in our portfolio were finally given a little bit of respite from the onslaught of relentless selling. Does that mean that this is finally the bottom? Will this rally have any legs next week? 

For those of you who are afraid you “missed the bottom” and are rushing to reallocate your cash on the sidelines, I wouldn’t get moving so fast. To put things in perspective and provide some perspective for expectations going forward, I’ve collected some really interesting analysis from around the blogosphere on likely trough valuations and the long term return expectations for the market. 

• Calculated Risk provides his analysis of the temporal order of business cycles
• EconBrowser presents an analysis of expected dividend reinvested, stock market returns if we were truly to spiral into “The Great Depression II”
• GuruFocus provides a similar analysis of expected market returns over the next decade using total market cap to GNP as a driver
• Peridot Capitalist writes about expected trough P/E ratios and why some analysts applying single-digit P/E ratios to current earnings may be way off the mark
• Ticker Sense compares current market correlations to historical performance and thinks we may be near the bottom
• Credit Write Downs – seriously the best blog I’ve read covering the current financial crisis

I intend this blog to be sort of an all around investing blog with a focus on stocks. So, those of you who came in hopes of more in depth Apple coverage may be a little disappointed. Apple, however, is one of my personal investments and I do cover it pretty significantly. A few of my favorite articles can be found below (repeated from earlier this week):

• Looking past accounting tomfoolery – GAAP versus Cash accounting and how you can profit.
• The Value of Steve Jobs per Share – A no-growth valuation of Apple in a supposedly bleak post-Steve Jobs world. It’s not as scary as you might think.
• The Men who would Replace Steve Jobs – A summary of various sources’ opinions on potential Steve Jobs successors, all of whom happen to already be employed by Apple.
• Lower prices/margins = Better investment? - A look at Apple’s announced plan to lower margins in order to capture market share.
• Apple, Tech firm or not? – A look at why I consider Apple as much a retail play as it is a tech investment.

For those of you who can’t get enough Apple, here are my favorite blogs on Apple and Apple investing.

• Bullish Cross – A rarely updated blog featuring analysis by Apple bull, Andy Zaky, who has more correctly predicted Apple’s results over the last year than most Wall Street “analysts”. Definitely worth reading through all his archives.  
• Apple 2.0 – Fortune/CNN Money’s Apple and technology blog.
• The Unofficial Apple Weblog – A great blog for Apple product rumors and other news.
• Apple Hot News – News straight from the Company’s mouth. 

People are too depressed to be sexually active. This is very unhealthy as a nation. Americans can do without cars and such, but they cannot do without sex. With all this economic misery and people losing all that money, sex is the farthest thing from their mind. It’s time for congress to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America. The only way they can do this is by supporting the adult industry and doing it quickly.

Daniel Drezner, a writer for Foreign Policy Magazine, recently posted the following analysis: 

Crazy as this sounds, Flynt and Francis do make one penetrating insight in their complaint — adult entertainment sales and rentals are shrinking much more quickly than overall DVD sales and rentals.  So it would be fair to say that compared to mainstream Hollywood, the adult entertainment sector is getting pounded.  Unless the economy can manage to mount a robust and vigorous upturn sometime soon, it makes sense for the adult entertainment industry to beg for a more direct and forceful stimulus package. 

Welcome GrowYourFunds Readers

I’m sure the above paragraph was at least a little redundant for those who have followed links here from my guest post. I’d just like to welcome you all to my little blog and introduce you to the concept. My intent with TheCuriousInvestor is to provide educational tutorials on investing topics both technical and fundamental. In fact, I recently finished a pretty popular series introducing the Dow Theory and various ways of applying it. From time to time, I provide my own market commentary, but typically speaking I like to reserve the prognosticating for the “experts.”

I hope you’ll enjoy your stay and I do recommend that you sign up for the feed!