Celebrating our 120th Anniversary with WWD and Footwear News
As we mark our 120th anniversary, we celebrated the milestone with WWD and Footwear News through interviews with several of our leaders that emphasize our future and how we are positioned to win with our Closer to You strategy. We’ve long believed the success of our business is centered around giving stellar customer service, offering unique product selections and experiences and adapting to the needs of our customers. We’re so thankful to all our customers and employees who helped us reach our 120th anniversary and we celebrate with each of you.
Our leaders sat down with WWD and Footwear News to reflect on this important milestone and what the future holds for Nordstrom. See highlights from their conversations below.
Erik Nordstrom: Eyeing the Future
Our Closer to You strategy is fundamental in bringing convenience and connection to our customers. Erik Nordstrom joined WWD to talk about the future of Nordstrom and our commitment to serving customers on their terms sharing, “The market strategy has a lot of traction. It’s been very successful. It’s now rolled out in our top 20 markets. In a nutshell, it’s about leveraging those physical assets available in the market where the customer lives, and the outcome is bringing much more selection at much faster delivery to the customer — at their doorstep, at the store, at curbside, within at the store, at curbside, within the same day or next day. Our capabilities are being enhanced to serve customers much more on their terms.”
We are widening the aperture of our Closer to You mission by creating an ecosystem between our two brands—Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack. “In the last year, we were able to turn on Rack stores, as part of our market strategy, so Nordstrom.com orders can be picked up at any Rack location, returns can be made as well. About 30% of our store pickups occur at Rack stores, which is terrific.”
Our commitment to giving the best customer service is what has set us apart the past 120 years. “Our aim is simply to make customers feel good. We think about that through the lens of getting closer to our customers, physically in ways of having the product closer to the customer, and in delivering one-on-one service, which has always been important to us.”
Pete Nordstrom: The Brand Builder
Over the past year, we have committed to increasing the digital velocity of our business by growing product assortment and increasing the linkage between the digital and physical. By unlocking the power of alternative partnership models, we have the ability scale customer choices from 300,000 to more than 1.5 million over the next three to five years. Pete Nordstrom explained what those alternative models look like: “There are a lot of different ways to do it — from drop ship to the traditional wholesale to revenue share to a hybrid concession model to a full
concession, where the brand owns the inventory, the space, it’s their people
managing it.”
Earlier this year, we announced a new joint venture with online retailer, ASOS. The innovative partnership redefines the traditional retail and wholesale model—providing opportunity to scale customer choices while delivering on our commitment to help customers feel good and look their best.
Pete also talked about the significance of reaching this milestone anniversary: “Heritage brands can have a lot of meaning, but it’s because they evolved to something else. That’s the lesson for us: We’re proud of our legacy. We’re proud of the reputation it affords us. Yet we’re really humbled by the fact we need to continue to evolve and stay curious and nimble. We’re interested in the long-term view and setting up our company for success for another 120 years.”
Jamie Nordstrom: Service, Synergies and the Single View
Creating seamless customer experiences, elevated services and greater
conveniences are at the heart of our mission. By having an integrated approach both online and in-stores we can create seamless touchpoints for our customers whether they are picking up an online order, in search of styling services or making a return—there is a single view approach.
“It’s about getting our teams really focused on Nordstrom customers as opposed to the store customer or the internet customer,” said Jamie. “It’s one customer. Nobody exclusively shops in stores or online. More than 50% of customers who shop in-store will have started their shopping journey
online with us, and similarly significant number of customers who buy from us online started their journey by seeing a product in-store.”
We're also scaling discovery and connection through our evolved digital services by providing our salespeople and stylists with the tools they need to serve customers both in-store and digitally. “Unleashing the sales team through new tools and social media to engage with customers to create excitement about new styles and find something cool they didn’t know they had to have. We are constantly looking at leveraging our sales team, our supply chain and our vendors.”
Nordstrom Rack: Racking Up Points
Nordstrom Rack plays a critical role in our Closer to You strategy – by leveraging our omnichannel capabilities, we are broadening the reach of our customers, offering the best products, prices and services while creating an ecosystem between our two brands, Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack.
President of Nordstrom Rack, Geevy Thomas, spoke about the importance of our digital footprint stating, “At Rack, we stand for having the very best prices, but where it all comes together is this access point… we believe that by having a digital footprint with our mobile, optimized website and app, store locations and shared services, we’re able to bring all those things together for customers.”
This past year, we introduced our next day buy online pickup in store service at Nordstrom Rack for purchases made through Nordstrom.com. Providing our customers the flexibility to pick up orders at a Nordstrom Rack near them proved to be successful during our Anniversary Sale. Geevy revealed “during our Anniversary Sale — which the Rack is not a part of — nearly 40% of next day pick-up orders for Nordstrom were picked up in a Rack store.”
Through our market strategy, we aim to broaden the aperture of the Rack customer by expanding our price and product offering, encourage customers to shop across Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack and offer a digitally connected shopping experience. As we bring more customers into Nordstrom Rack stores and online, we will develop a robust ecosystem across both brands.
These are just a few of the many stories told throughout this milestone edition. For a look at all the stories and interviews, visit: