Crain's : Gilt Groupe Inc. buys Bergine.com, a San Francisco-based seller of discounted deals

After three years in business, flash-sale specialist Gilt Groupe Inc., which made online shopping for discount luxury apparel commonplace, has announced its first acquisition.

Gilt City, the company's service and experience arm, is buying Bergine.com, a 7-month-old, San Francisco-based seller of discounted deals. The move is expected to give Manhattan-based Gilt a stronger foothold on the West Coast, since Bergine already boasts deals with several California restaurants, spas and entertainment providers.

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Use Coupons? You're Smarter, Richer and Hipper Too!

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a recent Deals.com poll (conducted by MyType), smart, rich (making between 100-200k a year), socially responsible people who value the environment, are extroverted and imaginative use online coupons.  Those consumers who are neurotic, angry, insecure, careless procrastinators who make less than $50,000 a year do not.

Do the online coupons make you smarter, richer and more imaginative?

Deals.com CEO, Cotter Cunningham has some ideas to explain this trend – "Online coupon use is an informed mindset.  Once you learn how easy it is to save money with our coupons, you wouldn't consider shopping online without them.  But most folks today don't realize there is a coupon for just about every store where they shop online. As the study shows, liberal, rich, ladies in the Northeast are already saving money by using online coupons.  Deals.com's mission is to spread the word on online coupons, so that everyone in this great country can save money shopping online."

Profile of a coupon "lover":

• People with household incomes in excess of $100,000 per year are roughly two times more likely to be coupon lovers.  
• People who identify themselves as extraverts and imaginative are respectively 47% and 25% more likely than others to favor online coupons.  
• Women are 67% more likely than men to be coupon lovers.
• People who consider the environment of utmost importance are the most likely to be coupon lovers – 37% more likely than others.  

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Detroit Free Press : Ritzy yacht club offers coupons

"Complimentary dockage" seems like an unusual come-on in a mass-mailed flyer.

But then you see who is making the offer: the venerable Grosse Pointe Yacht Club.

The Grosse Pointe Yacht Club?

One of the most exclusive -- and expensive -- in metro Detroit, the GPYC sent out mailers last month that informed recipients that new members can dock their boats for free during the 2009 season.

In addition, new members can take advantage of a program that allows them to put down only 25% of their initiation fee and defer the rest over 36 months with no interest.

Read entire article at freep.com

MediaPost : Study Finds Coupon Usage Is Intensifying

When it comes to money-saving coupons, the highest-earning segments are most active. Coupon penetration is at 69% of all households through the early part of this year, but 46% in households earning less than $25,000--and it jumps to 71% in families earning more than $75,000.

Usage is highest among those working in such white-collar functions as management, finance and administration. Also intriguing: Smaller households use coupons more than larger ones. Two-person households use more coupons than those with three or four people, and those with five or more people are least likely of all to use coupons.

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Market Watch : More high-earners clip coupons, shop at discount stores

Next time you lust after that luxury car or plasma television you can't afford, maybe this will ease your pain: The wealthy are more likely to be clipping coupons than the rest of us.

Noses no longer high in the air, affluent consumers clip coupons, shop at discount stores and cringe at being labeled "wealthy," according to a new survey of about 800 consumers earning at least $125,000 in annual household income.

Seventy-two percent of these high-income earners said they clip coupons, compared to the national average of 65 percent, and 66 percent said they shop at discount and warehouse stores, compared with 47 percent of consumers on average nationwide.

Read entire article at marketwatch.com