Posted on 12/16/2016 12:45:26 PM PST by Red in Blue PA
Nordstrom (JWN) shares tumbled Friday after JPMorgan (JPM) downgraded the department store, another dire sign for the dying mall industry.
Nordstrom was cut to underweight from neutral and had its price target cut to 48 from 55 by the investment bank
Analysts, citing discussions with management, said the upscale department store didn't have enough "multiyear silver bullets" to boost sales growth. Further, the increasing costs to handle online traffic and online shopping is continuing to cannibalize the company's brick-and-mortar sales.
"Management cited full-line brick and mortar traffic levels as the worst since 1972 with the accelerating model shift from brick and mortar to online yet to reach equilibrium citing 'no easy answer' to re-stimulating foot traffic," JPMorgan analysts wrote in their note.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
It was a great mall in the late 70s.
The mall in the town just north of where we live rents out part to a magnet school.
But it was the place to leave your car if you wanted it stolen. Gang ridden.
Yeah, but I drive 160 miles round trip to work every day. The shopping mall and all the strip malls near it are by where I work. The problem is that my wife is not with me...
Been shopping at Lands End for almost 35 years. Great clothes, fit perfectly, plus everything comes with a 100% lifetime guarantee.
Tried to find an electric space heater in Feb a few years ago. Not one store had one, it was an emergency. Bought kerosene instead.
I put a review on Amazon and they “disappeard” it, it was about Hillary Clinton’s book.
I started looking at my purchases from amazon. they have been substantial.
I am finding that many companies now free ship and their products are at a lower cost than Amazon.
I recently purchased six night lights from Plow and Hearth that were 22 each on Amazon, but 14 each at Plow and Hearth Website. Free shipping.
I also purchased a mattress warmer yesterday that was 11 dollars more at Amazon than through the manufacturer/distributor. Again with Free Shipping.
Manufacturers are realizing that they too can negotiate for shipping like Amazon.
I use Amazon more for comparison shopping but actually purchase at the manufacturer/distributor website. I imagine that Bezos sees this and this is why he is madly diversifying.
Also, Amazon treats their employees like dirt. No one needs to support that sort of thing.
Amazon has return lockers near me, so you don’t even have to pay for return shipping.
There is a philosophy in retail—don’t chase the last dollar. The retailers like to “go in lean and come out clean”, i.e., not have a lot of dead inventory after the holiday that they either need to mark down or store until the following Christmas. Not saying I necessarily agree—I see local stores, for example, already running out of heaters and winter isn’t even here yet. There should be a happy medium, for sure.
The big problem with the no-inventory model is that people no longer see the store as the place to go get an item. Instead, their competitors may or may not have the item too, so store loyalty disappears.
The owner of perhaps the nations largest private gun shop (Specialty Sports and Supply, Colorado Springs, Colorado) has a simple philosophy: “I can’t sell it if I don’t have it.” He grew into the largest store because people know if they want it he probably has it, so his store became the destination shop. “Destination” is the primary word retailers forgot that people like Sam Walton invented.
Absolutely agree. Home Depot is an interesting model. I worked there back in earlier days—in 1992 if they sold 3 of something they would order 6 back in. They called it artificially capping their sales if they were out of what a customer wanted to buy. Now they are on computer ordering, so their orders always lag their sales. In 1992, with a 28% gross margin they pulled 6.2 turns and a net profit of 5%. The last year I researched they had 33% gross margins, with 4.0 turns and a net profit of 6%. Seems like the humans did a much better job of ordering than the computers do.
When stores had real department managers, those managers talked with customers and determined the suitability of products, looked at sales velocities and supplier lead times, and they determined the best time to order and how much and of what product.
Now, humans use the computer as an excuse: “Gosh, those IT guys make the computer decisions. We only input the inventory counts. I don’t know why we ran out, but the central distribution warehouse hasn’t delivered anything either.”
Wholesale figures are also a major issue. The retail GPM used to be at least 100%. A $1.14 notepad at Walgreens used to cost $0.14 wholesale. It just doesn’t pay retailers to have inventory anymore.
There are Nordstroms in open air malls. Oakbrook IL.
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>> “But clothing needs to be seen” <<
Correctamundo!!!!
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We used to go to one many years ago that was in the news somewhat recently. Muslim went around getting stabby and got taken out by an off duty cop.
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