By CARA BUCKLEY


NEW YORK - Up and down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, it is hard not to see red. Along the storied shopping avenue, once immune to garish displays of retail desperation, shops of all persuasions are using crimson sale signs as bait to lure in skittish consumers.

Just as Warren E.Buffett said recently of stocks - that now is the time to scoop them up - so, too, is now an ideal moment to, say, grab a really cheap scoopneck sweater at the Gap, which was among many stores offering discounts of 30 percent off the entire inventory recently.

For those with more money to spend, or credit wherewithal, deals are available at luxury shops, even if the clerks - who roundly but politely declined to give their names - may frown at the mention of the word “sale.’’

One recent Sunday, a clerk at the Paul Morelli jewelry counter at Bergdorf Goodman shook his head when asked about storewide discounts, though a small stand-up sign 15 meters away advised that select items were up to 40 percent off. Discounted items included a $1,400 Nancy Gonzalez raspberry crocodile skin clutch, now selling - or not - for $980.

In mid-November, sales associates at Prada and Fendi quietly conceded that they expected discounts to be steeper and to be offered earlier this year. At one luxury boutique, an associate disclosed that there would be a private sale for select clients, then implored that the news be kept secret.

Speaking in hushed tones, a saleswoman at Salvatore Ferragamo said the luxury retailer planned to cut prices up to 30 percent a week or two earlier than usual. One block south, at Versace, a salesman arched an eyebrow when asked if there were sales to be had.

“All the stores are breaking earlier this year,’’ he replied elusively, using the industry term for offering sales.“But Donatella said business is fabulous.”

As it happened, the salesman, along with his colleagues , appeared to be the only people in the store.

As news reports warn of flagging retail sales and as predictions abound about a super-slow Christmas season, shops around the United States are offering deals in hopes of stanching losses and gaining some momentum.

But retailers and those who watch the industry say it is particularly noteworthy to see sales along Fifth Avenue, where they are usually confined to the back of the store, not brazenly broadcast from windows. Even the more luxurious stops, among them Bloomingdale’s, Bergdorf Goodman and Salvatore Ferragamo, are discreetly cutting prices .

Marshal Cohen, the chief retail analyst at the NPD Group, which tracks consumer sales, said that Fifth Avenue was “traditionally immune to being on sale,” but that the flagging economy, and the fact that even “tourist-driven volume shows sign of faltering’’ this fall, meant that nothing is sacred.“Fifth Avenue’s becoming more and more like any mall in America,’’he said.“It’s not as unique as it used to be.’’