UPDATED Flash Sale at Zatchels: 50% off EVERYTHING for 24 hours!

Zatchels, who make those gorgeous old-school satchels and more besides, are celebrating their second birthday with a 24-hour flash sale. From now until 11.59pm on Saturday 20 April 2013, EVERYTHING on the Zatchels site is half-price.

UPDATE: this flash sale has now been extended, and is running until 5pm on Sunday 21 April 2013.

The sale includes their classic satchels (from £86 £43)…

…their various shoulder bags (these barrel bags are reduced from £50 to £25 – bargain!)…

…the buttery leather duffle bag that I have been coveting for a while now (£145 reduced to £72.50)…

…and even their leather iPad cases (£45 reduced to £22.50).

I am the proud owner of a Zatchels satchel – bought at a very unthrifty full price! It was a Christmas present from my husband a couple of Christmases ago, and was something of a lavish surprise: I didn’t even know that he knew how much I was lusting after one. It turns out that he’d found the page open on my computer, after I’d left it on standby, and a lightbulb went on over his head.

This satchel goes everywhere with me: I wear it non-stop. It has turned out to be a good investment. As you can see, despite daily use it is still in excellent nick: the straps are a little curly, but that’s about it. The leather is so thick and sturdy, it is barely even dinged. This is the smallest size satchel (11″): perfect for me because I don’t have much to carry around (wallet, phone, a couple of bits of make-up, tissues, keys), but it would be on the small side for those of you who cram more than that into your bags. The next sizes up would be fine, though.

Three important things to note:

1. At the time of writing, the  Zatchels site is down after being besieged by bag-loving bargain hunters. Apparently the tech team are working on it, and I hope that by the time you read this, the site issues have been resolved. If it’s slow or you have trouble getting on, keep trying.

2. As lovely as the Zatchels bags are, if you want one but can’t afford one this time around, even at half-price, all is not lost. I recommend that you follow Zatchels on Facebook: they do frequent giveaways there.

3. Last week when I posted about the 24-hour BHS flash sale, Miss Thrifty reader Dee commented to complain that by the time she had received the daily email and run her morning errands, she was too late to take advantage of the deals. Flash sales like this are often run at short notice, so my reasoning is that even if only some of you get to hear about it in time, it’s worth posting about. But if you come to this one too late, I’m sorry: I know that with it being the weekend, some of you won’t receive or check the email until the sale is done and dusted. I am currently in the process of moving email subscriptions to another service, which will allow me to issue BREAKING DEAL-type alerts – if you want them, of  course! If this would be of interest, please let me know in the comments.

UPDATE: this flash sale has now been extended, and is running until 5pm on Sunday 21 April 2013.

[www.zatchels.com]