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 ...
The answer for foot shopping is an interesting shopping experience. A variety of unique stores, restaurants
I like to shop for clothes in a store. See what's available. Try it on.
Yes, I will buy underwear online. Socks.
But clothing needs to be seen
Shopping malls are SO 1972.
I hope clothing stores don't disappear. It's hare to try clothes on through a computer screen.
I remember when Nordstroms was one of the examples of excellence in the book In Search Of Excelllence.
I usually prefer traditional shopping and I never liked shopping online, but it’s gotten to the point where it’s often a waste of time to go shopping at a retail store. The biggest problem I have is that these stores don’t carry the merchandise I need anymore. I now do more and more shopping online simply to ensure that I can find what I’m looking for.
I have not done malls for many years. The traffic is the main reason. The constantly increasing convenience of internet shopping and heavily discounted prices there is another.
Heck, I don’t even window shop any more - except on the internet.
The economy at large is on the upswing, due to Trump, so traffic should increase by at least a commensurate amount.
I wouldn’t pay attention to any earnings/economic reports until the fall of next year.
I don’t understand this.
I like to shop for clothes in a store. See what’s available. Try it on.
Yes, I will buy underwear online. Socks.
But clothing needs to be seen
I wouldn’t be surprised that Nordstrom is seriously looking at putting stores in open-air shopping complexes instead of the traditional shopping mall.
We moved to rural KY over five years ago. The nearest mall is 80 miles away and the traffic there is horrendous. Meanwhile, Costco online, Amazon, and some of my product specific online retailers have free shipping.
We just got a fantastic large flat screen delivered to our door from Costco. Free shipping. Can’t beat that.
I just went to Home Depot, Lowes, and Wal-Mart today to try to get another yard electrical stake. NONE of them had full inventory of any Christmas/Seasonal items 10 days before Christmas. The stores believe they already need to rotate their inventory to something else. There were no stakes to be found.
The morons running retail stores circle jerk each other and now they all believe somehow removing their Christmas inventory sometime in early December is a good idea. Meanwhile, they can’t seem to figure out why seasonal sales are down.
The dumbing down of America continues.
Nordstrom, a store I used to shop at regularly, went full homosexual with their clothing. Their entire clothing lines are driven by homosexual fashion trends. It seems like they found a warehouse full of 1977 disco clothing and are re-releasing those lines.
People are using the retail stores as a sort of showroom, going and trying things on, checking them out and then going online for the cheapest price.
I don’t think it’s desirable that brick and mortar retail shuts down, but for higher end retailers especially, there’s a lot of overhead to carry with that big, fine store.
They can’t compete on price and never intended to compete on price, it’s the service, selection and overall experience that drives (or drove) their sales. It’s a rock and a hard place for department and specialty stores. All I can think of for them to do is to offer merch that cannot be bought anywhere else. They certainly can’t start blocking people from trying things on.
“I have not done malls for many years. The traffic is the main reason. “
I found every single significant gift this year online. Nothing came from a retail store.
The stores simply no longer carry inventory. Seems “inventory” is a bad word. No one wants to have “overages”, meaning, after a seasonal period what is left in inventory. Retail targets 0% overage. They would rather have sold out of a small inventory than have sold a large inventory with some inventory left over. The incentives is “0% overages”, not “total sales”.
The dumbing down of American continues.
I’m not getting in that traffic or crowds. Period.
Brings back memories.
Whatever happened to Woolworth’s? And Kresge’s, Grant’s, JJ Newberry, etc. That entire category of dime stores seems not to exist anymore.
Worst since 1972...
Ok, please state what statistic you mean. Fake stats meant to bolster a financially motivated argument....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.