New York Magazine is set to start sending out New York Deals, a weekly deals email that will consist of 15,000 opt-in recipients at launch. The deals email, which will be accompanied by a New York Deals website, takes its place among a number of well-subscribed email newsletters already published by the magazine. The difference? New York Deals will be entirely e-commerce-oriented, and won’t sell advertising.

New York Media’s Serena Torrey told us that New York Deals will be focused on providing select deals that reflect New York’s sophisticated editorial and readership. The deals will be sourced from various deal companies, which will work with New York as an affiliate partner. “We went after deals companies that had deals that we liked the best; the ones that were most interesting ones to us,” said Torrey.

The initial group of deals includes Gilt City, BuyWithMe, Lifebooker (beauty and fitness) and Zozi (unique activities). Torrey says that each of the sites met specific reader needs. Gilt City, for instance, provides hard-to-find deals for high-end restaurants. Lifebooker, similarly, has deals for high-end salons. Partners for other segments, such as family and children, will also likely be pursued.

While the magazine is beginning with New York Deals as an aggregated, curated product, New York may eventually begin sourcing some of its own deals. For the time being, Torrey says that New York Deals will be separate from other parts of NY Magazine, including its various fashion, eating, city guide and lifestyle blogs and content. “Right now, we are sticking with email and landing pages as our channels.”

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Gilt City CEO Nate Richardson, speaking at ILM East, said the site has married good deals with highly curated lifestyle items and services. As such, it has strongly differentiated itself from other deals providers. Indeed Gilt City’s ability to leverage Gilt Group’s five million member list, and a flash sales approach, provides higher average dollar values and better open rates. Richardson reports that the site has seen open rates and conversion rate “well into the double digits.”

The site launched last year in New York. Since September, the site has been operating in six U.S. cities, including New York, Boston, Chicago, Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles. In December, it added Tokyo as its first international market.

The sites have their own feet on the street sales force, or “curators,” as Richardson calls them. Every curator is equipped with an iPad to illustrate the site’s high quality graphics, as well as case studies that provide as much information on every category as possible.

Other markets will be added during 2011, but the site is not for every market, cautioned Richardson. “We’ll be in all the right cities where we can match the lifestyles of our customers,” he says.

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