In the wake of the tech stock downturn six years ago, online retailers were dropping like flies, and designer fashion site Bluefly Inc. looked as if it would join them.
After all, the New York company hadn't turned a profit since its 1998 launch. It still hasn't. This year the stock fell so low that Bluefly was warned it might be delisted by Nasdaq.
But this feisty e-tailer, which promotes itself with television ads so racy that most traditional broadcasters won't carry them, has managed to hang on for yet another Cyber Monday, today's annual kickoff of the holiday buying season online.
Chief Executive Melissa Payner -- who overhauled the company since joining it three years ago and raised funds from investors to keep it going -- says the time is right for Bluefly's strategy of providing bargains on Armani, Prada and other high-style labels.
"We went through all those years when people wanted to brag about their jewels and their expensive clothing," Payner said. "And people still want those things they see on celebrities.
"The difference is that now, if you tell a woman she has a great handbag, the first thing she might say is, 'You won't believe what I paid for it.' She wants you to know she's an intelligent shopper."
Payner, 48, said that when Bluefly was launched it was not choosy about the items it got from designers.
"They would take almost anything in order to say that the designer was on the site," she said. "They ended up with last year's styles, clothes that didn't fit well, stuff the designer was stuck with."
Payner, who had been president of apparel retailer Chico's and chief executive of the Spiegel catalog company before coming to Bluefly, transformed its way of acquiring designer clothes and accessories.
Her buyers hit the marketplace daily to buy in-season fashions. They would get the leftovers at a price break from what front-line retailers, such as major department stores and boutiques, would pay months before the season began.
"We're very selective," Payner said. "We might miss out on some stuff, but we don't feel we miss out on trends. We're on season."
The designers, meanwhile, get cash flow outside the usual buying period. That offsets at least some of the possible stigma of appearing on a discount site.
"It's just part of doing business these days," said Los Angeles designer Alan Schwartz. Clothes from his ABS line appear on Bluefly.
