You may have heard that Facebook recently hit 500 million members. According to Google AdPlanner, in June the popular social network received 540 million unique visitors, so there’s some evidence that the site’s open graph initiative is working in expanding the reach of the site even beyond its massive user base.

But what’s really interesting is how Facebook has penetrated the wealthy web. First, a little background on why we focus on internet trends among $100,000+ households. The only site which reaches more wealthy US users is Yahoo, who reaches 56% of the $100k+ online population, compared to Facebook’s 51% (Google may reach more, though they don’t include themselves in their AdPlanner stats, so it’s difficult to pinpoint exact numbers).

As a whole, households with an income of $100,000/year or more represent the top 15% of all households according to the 2005 Census. A little over $150,000/year would place a household among the top fifth in the country. {Wikipedia} Internet users who in households earning over $100,000 per year represent the top 10% of the internet population, and those earning over $150,000 are in the top 3%.

Offline, there’s evidence that while the top earners take in a disproportional amount of money compared to the rest of the country, they also spend more – accounting for 40% of consumer spending. While we haven’t found any studies to show that high earners spend more online, it’s not an illogical thought.

For fashion, we know that the wealthy are overwhelmingly shopping at sites like Macy’s and Zappos in greater quantities than sites like Neiman Marcus or Saks. When it comes to social sites, where are the wealthy spending time? On Facebook and YouTube primarily, but also reading blogs, tweeting or on the professional network LinkedIn. Disappointed?

We know, the profile of the wealthy social web sounds strikingly similar to the general social web. But it’s important to highlight this for luxury brands and marketers who are still fearful of the dirty, unwashed masses that they suspect of filling these sites up.

We don’t underestimate the power of small and focused – just look at the success of millions of small blogs, but the “right people” that brands always refer to are hanging out in all of the “wrong” large and mass places as well.

Around the world, some of the names change, but the pattern is the same. We took a look at Facebook and the breakdown of the wealthy web in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. While local players round out the next 5 largest social sites in Europe, Facebook and YouTube absolutely dominate. As for the local sites that rank? Overwhelmingly they’re blog hosting sites or Facebook knockoffs.

So, for the luxury brands who are still afraid of the internet, and still refuse to participate, we only have one question: your customers are here, why aren’t you?

Click through for a breakdown of the top social sites on the wealthy Australian, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Swiss web. For a breakdown of the top social sites on the affluent UK web, click here.

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The Chanel 2.55, now .2x more expensive?

Hermès posted second quarter sales results that were up 20% (must be the magic number), noting increased demand in Asia and the US, where a weaker Euro may have worked in the company’s favor. Groupe Laurent Perrier, a champagne maker, had a sales increase of 17% compared to the previous year, and Swiss watchmakers outpaced both for a 35% increase in exports compared to the previous year. {WSJ} Chanel recently opened a Korean store that set a one-day sales record of nearly $375,000. {JoongAng Daily}

Still, is now the best time to hike prices – particularly at a double digit rate? We’ll have to wait a few more weeks to see if the Chanel rumors pan out, but a recent report from MasterCard Advisors’ SpendingPulse showed a 3.9% decrease in spending compared to last June. With a few notable exceptions, even the good news isn’t entirely good. While sales are up, for many retailers this is an increase over sharp declines last year, so it’s not straight line growth.

What’s more, consumers with household incomes over $150,000 per year – the approximate entry level to be included among the top 20% of US households, account for almost 40% of spending. Luxury sales, which likely rely on $150k+ shoppers for a more significant portion of sales tend to fluctuate with the stock market. {Google News} Lately, the Dow Jones hasn’t been doing so well and may be an early sign of wealthy spenders becoming more conservative with their purchases in coming months.

The good news? Well, for the luxury retailers finally coming around to e-commerce, it may be better late than never. Online sales were up 9.7% overall. Apparel was the best performing category with growth of 18.6%, marking the seventh month of double digit gains. {Internet Retailer}

We know that Chanel has plans to finally offer a wider range of products to online shoppers – expanding on their existing beauty e-commerce area, and giving real competition to web savvy counterfeiters for the first time. Yet somehow we’re not sure if that will be enough if luxury shoppers start questioning why the same bag that was 20% less 2 weeks ago is suddenly more expensive. The Euro hit significant lows against the dollar this year, after laying off hundreds of workers at the height of the crisis we know they’re operating with a leaner workforce, and many brands cut production to respond to lowered demand. While Chanel is certainly one of the brands that can rely on its heritage to lend its products “investment” status, we’ll have to see if shoppers accept a price hike tied more to image than actual costs – or if they decide to invest elsewhere.

Want to know where the wealthy shop online in the UK? Visit Signature9 UK for a look at the UK shopping sites popular with high earners.

It’s impossible to break out apparel shoppers for department store sites (many of which also sell home and garden items), so it should be noted than not every visitor browsing macys.com is there for clothing, beauty or jewelry items. But even if half of the visitors are there for dresses instead of dishes, Macy’s is attracting one of the largest (and richest) online shopping audiences.

Our data is from Google’s Ad Planner, which only offers visitor and demographic information going back one year. We can’t say if the economy has played a role in shifting online shopping preferences, but presently, wealthy online shoppers aren’t visiting luxury destinations in the same volume as they visit e-commerce sites with mid-level pricing. A possible silver lining for sites specializing in luxury sales: while they may not get the same volume of traffic, it’s quite possible that high end e-commerce sites earn more per sale and visitor.

Of the top 20 apparel e-commerce sites attracting the largest number of wealthy online shoppers, 6 (30%) are sites specializing in discount sales. Gilt and Rue La La are neck and neck for the title of the invitation sale site with the wealthiest visitors. Allowing for a small sampling error, the two sites could even reach the same number of wealthy visitors. The advantage, however, goes to Gilt Groupe, who attracts a combined 1.2 million visitors across the main Gilt site, and recently launched sister (and brother) sites Gilt Fuse and Gilt Man. Combined, Gilt Groupe attracts more visitors earning $100,000 or more than any other online only e-commerce apparel site besides Zappos. Pretty impressive for a company that’s not even 3 years old.

When it comes to visitors earning $100k or more per year, invitation sale sites may not have as many visitors as department stores, but as a percentage of visitors, a sizable portion are in this desirable online shopper demographic.

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