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The IADS had the opportunity to travel to Seattle to attend and report the Global Department Stores Summit, co-organized with Nordstrom. It was the occasion to review how the iconic US department store is articulating its attention to customers, which they claim to be superior to the competition in the country. On this occasion, we visited the Pine Street store (in the Seattle city centre), a location not as glamorous as the store at Columbus Circle in New York that we reviewed earlier this year.

What is so special about their service and how is it organized in store from the customer perspective? What are the learnings for other retailers? And most importantly, how is this helping in a city still bearing the scars of the pandemic, including a devastated “Retail Mile”?

Visiting the store: caring for customers on every floor

The store is located in the heart of the Retail Mile, not far away from the Pike Place Market (known for its fish-throwing tradition and the 33rd most visited attraction in the world in terms of traffic). However, even a few blocks of distance from this energetic zone can feel very far away given the state of retail in the neighbourhood: the Macy’s store still bears its logo although it has been closed, and so does Barney’s just across the street. The competition has fiercely reduced, and Nordstrom is now the only department store in the location, along with a Nordstrom Rack across the street, and a Saks Off 5th a block away.

The store is built on 5 floors and was refurbished in 2016. The layout is simple: men’s fashion in the basement, shoes and beauty on the ground floor, women designers’ fashion on the first floor, contemporary fashion on the second one and sports, lingerie and services on the upper floor.

The basement is very accessible through large ramps, and features a full universe for every male customer: a significant suit and formal fashion area (according to the sales manager, Men’s suiting is still a significant part of the business), an animation area, the shoes and accessories space, and a restaurant (Nordstrom Grill), offering a full lunch service, representing 1 out of 4 transactions in the store.

The animation area has been developed according to a different graphic identity and is dedicated to delivering what is new in fashion. At the time of the visit, the space was dedicated to sports, and this is the 17th edition since the launch of this concept in 2019 (popups are opened on a quarterly basis). There, Nordstrom sells “products with a point of view” (meaning either exclusive brands, products or collaborations) and takes the opportunity to produce content with its selection (for instance, a part of the sport selection was featured in a promotional clip with the rapper Macklemore and generated 200m media impressions, in addition to selling 75,000 pieces in 2 weeks nationwide).

Apart from this specific space, the brand assortment is classic for a high-end fashion department store, with luxury shop-in-shops on the periphery (even though according to the salesperson concessions only represent a mere 10% of the total business) and more accessible brands in the middle section, including a denim section. Interestingly, Topman, which Nordstrom operates in exclusivity worldwide, is displayed without any mention of this exclusivity, and feels a bit lost in the retail space.

Services are proposed with third parties, such as a shoeshine family business that has been a local partner of Nordstrom for the last 30 years.

The ground floor features beauty, cosmetics, shoes and accessories.

For the beauty section, a concierge is here to sample the whole offer, which is impressive, in addition to helping customers and directing them to the right brands, all featured in a lightly customized concept with low displays. Customers also have the possibility to bring back their empty packaging to be recycled (although the execution itself of the recycling unit in cardboard is surprising and denotes with the environment). There are also food and beverage touchpoints in the cosmetic area in order to increase the time spent in the section.

When it comes to shoes, the space felt really crowded with products, with many advertised on sale. Interestingly, the shoe offer is doubled: entry and mid-price point products are featured on the ground floor, and expensive ones are featured in the designers’ section along with the related accessories and RTW, to propose a full silhouette.

The floor also features a “service bar”, here to offer “service and convenience” (quick returns, touchpoints, purchase pickup, alterations, click & collect). In terms of managerial practices, the best employees are featured there, and are highly visible to customers.

The first floor is quite immersive with brands’ locations featuring the whole product offer and differentiated from each other with subtle variations on the walls and flooring. The animation space, mirroring what is available in the Men’s section, is much lighter in terms of concept and somehow less visible. The denim section is huge, but not called “denim”.

Here also, services are available, such as alterations (Nordstrom has the largest US network of tailors able to alter any product).

The second floor is dedicated to contemporary fashion, including Topshop and Asos (not really advertised as unique or exclusive for any of the two). Here, no brand has its own concept, as it is all about rotation and new findings. For instance, a specific concept is dedicated to new brand discovery, just in front of the escalator, and makes a new product proposal every six months. The interesting point is the variable business model, as sometimes the space can be lent or rented to brands (such as Allbirds), and sometimes, Nordstrom makes its own selection of products.

The third floor is probably the most interesting, and not for the product selection (sports, kids, lingerie, home products), as all sections are quite heavy visually due to the number of products on display.

What is striking on this floor is the click and collect area, and the fact that the stocking area is on the sales floor, visible from all. Initially, the reason for such a situation was that it was easier during the pandemic, when the stores were closed, to set up a pickup area for sales associates there, but then, Nordstrom realized that it could be an asset to show operations.

When customers are coming, they see the sales associate taking their parcel from the shelving. If the product is in a box, it means that it comes from another store or a warehouse (there are 3 fulfilment centres in the country). If the product is in a bag, it comes from the store itself. Customers are then invited to open their boxes or bags, to make sure that the product is right for them. If not, they have the possibility to have them altered by the click and collect staff, who can also gift wrap them on the spot. Interestingly, the click and collect staff are not sales persons and are not trained on what is available, meaning that they can bring an additional service, but cannot complete a sale by another product suggestion.

According to them, the visible shelving has now become an attraction and a destination for customers, who are happy to come to this floor to pick up their products. They have the possibility to wait at the nearby café (not particularly inviting) in case they have to wait for the alteration to take place.

Our opinion

Overall, at the time of the visit (early June), the sales floor was packed with merchandise, including discounted products even though the Nordstrom Rack is across the street. This was especially visible with shoes and accessories, suggesting that, even though we were told that business was great, the retail recuperation was somehow slow to take off.

Two other points were striking at the time of the visit:

-    Nordstrom takes great pride in being a knowledgeable fashion retailer, with a distinctive flavour and a specific selection. This is visible through the special concepts designed in the Men’s and Women’s sections (where they experiment with new brands or brands repositioning themselves, such as Lacoste or Aigle) and the animation zones in the women’s section. This makes it all the more surprising that they are not heavily advertising the fact that the Nordstrom customer has the worldwide privilege to shop Topshop, Topman and Asos, once global brands and now labels that only Nordstrom has the right to sell.

-    The service point on the third floor was visually impressive, and so were its organisational processes when described by sales associates. It is quite impressive to have managed to make the shelves an attraction per se, and decided to display them on the retail floor (this also relates to what we saw in the Nordstrom Men’s store in Colombus Circle, NY). However, such attention to customer service and detail should go hand in hand with the motivation of the associates: our experience at the service counter (ground floor) was, at best, poor, during the store opening hours, and somehow echoed the questions raised by the multiple signs on the sales floor encouraging people to apply and join Nordstrom teams.

All in all, the Nordstrom customer service quality is undisputed in the USA, and this Seattle store is no exception when compared to the competition. However, the level of inventory seen on the sales floor (a situation which is not specific to Nordstrom) might imply that physical retail is still difficult for stores located downtown (customers really need a very good reason to come there), leading to a focus on sales and discounted items (Nordstrom has even announced that the Rack business unit was a key component of its planned growth in these difficult times), which, in turn, reflects on the sales associates morale and the overall store experience.

The gap between the New York stores and this one is quite significant, and we are not talking about the stores’ setups (the New York units are more recent), but really, the atmosphere generated by a staff which seemed, at the time of visit, less motivated and excited in Seattle than in New York.

Credits: IADS (Selvane Mohandas du Ménil)