Nordstrom's Q1 Profits Hurt By Promotions, Shipping; Misses Street

Nordstrom Inc's profit for the first quarter edged up just 2.7% to $149 million, compared with $145 million in the same period last year. Results, which were negatively impacted by free shipping offers and promotional initiatives, met internal expectations, but missed Wall Street estimates.

Sales soared 13.7% to $2.53 billion, but still missed analysts’ forecast of $2.55 billion. Same-store sales rose 8.5%.

Nordstrom has seen strong performance of late, as the luxury category has continued to gain strength, but investments into customer experience initiatives, such as free shipping on all online purchases with no minimum purchase requirement, have squeezed profit margins. The initiatives, however, have had a positive impact on Nordstrom’s e-commerce business, as online sales rose 44.2% in the quarter ended April 28.

Source:  retailingtoday.com

Nordstrom EDI 852 Reporting

If you are a vendor supplying to Nordstrom, you are eligible to receive product sales activity and inventory data via EDI 852. Preparing to setup and receive the EDI 852 files can be confusing, and creating usable reports for your team can be very time consuming. Fortunately, Accelerated Analytics® provides a simple, outsourced service for all your Nordstrom EDI 852 reporting needs.

Using Accelerated Analytics® makes all your reporting headaches go away. With Accelerated Analytics®, we handle all the data conversion, database hosting and reporting. We even provide training and the end user reporting tools. 

Accelerated Analytics® benefits:

• Eliminate manual data entry and manipulation
• Consolidate all Nordstrom store data on all your SKU's into one reporting database
• Pre-built exception reports with color coded dashboards
• No software or hardware to purchase
• Sophisticated charts and graphs

Available reports:

• This weeks sales and inventory by store and SKU
• Last weeks sales and inventory by store and SKU
• This months sales and inventory by store and SKU
• 6 week rolling sales and inventory by store and SKU
• Sell-thru
• Inventory turns
• Days supply on hand

Accelerated Analytics® will give you the ability to anticipate changes in sales and inventory, so you can make adjustments before a costly mistake occurs. 

Positive Signs In Retail

Nordstrom and Lowe’s both reported big increase in profits, and their CEO’s believe the economy is improving, and their sales will continue to improve.

Nordstrom's Profit More Than Doubles
Upscale department-store chain Nordstrom Inc. reported a 152 percent increase in profits during the quarter ended Jan. 30, underscoring how its strategy of expanding price points and carrying more exclusive merchandise is leading to more full-priced selling. The 108-year-old Seattle retailer missed Wall Street's profit expectations by two cents a share on higher expenses and credit card delinquencies. The company's shares fell 3.8% in after-hours trading, to $34.75.  Nordstrom maintained a cautious outlook for 2010, noting that it expects same-store sales to increase between 2% and 4%,

Lowe’s Profits Up 27%
Lowe's Cos. reported a 27% jump in fiscal fourth-quarter earnings amid signs that U.S. consumers are at least starting to consider home-renovation projects again, after more than three years of hesitation. Chief Executive Robert A. Niblock said, the home-improvement retailer's first year-over-year quarterly earnings increase in seven quarters suggests "the worst of the economic cycle is likely behind us." Lowe's expects to see a monthly same-store sales increase during the second quarter—the retailer's peak selling season.

Nordstrom to Spend $45 Million on Tech Upgrades in 2010

Nordstrom recently announced its plans to invest approximately $40 to $45 million in technology upgrades next year, maintaining its level of IT spend year-over-year.

Over the past year, the luxury department store has been heavily focused on evolving its multi-channel business.  This focus has clearly paid off, since the luxury department store most recently reported in its latest quarter that sales for its online Nordstrom Direct business increased 16.4 percent.

The department store also has recently updated its inventory platform, so online orders could be fulfilled from the stores or any Nordstrom location.|

According to Blake Nordstrom, President and Director, Nordstrom, "This continues our ongoing effort to improve our customers' experience by providing them with greater access to more of our inventory whenever and however they want to shop."

Nordstrom continues, "For the customer to go online and be able to leverage the entire inventory throughout the company represents tremendous opportunities. There's significant learnings that are coming from this about our allocation of inventory and, again, our supply chain, but we view it as a real positive and view it as another confirmation on behalf of the customer in the feedback that they're giving us that this multi-channel strategy is super important to our future growth."