Luxury goods retailers, embarrassed to join their high street peers in holding overt sales, are resorting to secret discount events and private web sites before Christmas.

Shops such as Liberty of London, Richard James and Net a Porter have offered discounts of up to 20 to 60 percent in recent weeks to pull in cash as the international financial crisis continues.

Taking "sale" posters in their stores as an embarrassment, many luxury retailers are inviting customers to "private sales," selling their stock at a lower price, the Financial Times reported yesterday.

"We're doing it because we have to but we're really holding our noses," said the manager of a Knightsbridge boutique.

Guy Salter, deputy chairman of Walpole, the association of the British luxury industry, said many of his members were being forced to think about discounting probably for the first time.

Sales of luxury goods collapsed in September and October as the international financial crisis intensified and the rich saw the value of their investments drop.

Burberry and Mulberry, for example, have both seen steep falls in revenue over the past two months, FT said.